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The 
Merry-Go-Round 




BOOKS BY 
CARL VAN VECHTEN 




MUSIC AFTER THE GREAT WAR 


1915 


MUSIC AND BAD MANNERS 


1916 


INTERPRETERS AND INTERPRE- 
TATIONS 


1917 


THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 


1918 


THE MUSIC OF SPAIN 


1918 



The 
Merry-Go-Round 

Carl Van Vechten 



"Tournez, tournez, bons che<vaux de hois, 
Tournez cent tours, tournez mille tours, 
Tournez sowvent et tournez toujour*, 
Tournez, tournez au sons de hautbois. " 
Paul Verlaine 




New York Alfred A. Knopf 

MCMXVIII 



COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY 
ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc. 



i> 






OCT - i 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



©CLA50S674 



For Mary Garden 



I 



Contents 



PAGE 

In Defence of Bad Taste 11 

Music and Supermusic 23 

Edgar Saltus 37 

The New Art of the Singer 93 

Au Bal Musette 125 

Music and Cooking 149 

An Interrupted Conversation 179 
The Authoritative Work on American 

Music 197 

Old Days and New 215 

Two Young American Playwrights 227 

De Senectwte Cantorwm 245 
Impressions in the Theatre 

I The Land of Joy 281 

II A Note on Mimi Aguglia 293 

III The New Isadora 307 
IV Margaret Anglin Produces As You 

Like It 318 

The Modern Composers at a Glance 329 



Some of these essays have appeared in " The 
Smart Set," " Reedy's Mirror," " Vanity Fair," 
"The Chronicle," "The Theatre," "The Bell- 
man," " The Musical Quarterly," " Rogue," " The 
New York Press," and " The New York Globe." 
In their present form, however, they have under- 
gone considerable redressing. 



I 



In Defence of Bad Taste 

" It is a painful thing, at best, to live up to one's 
bricabric, if one has any; but to live up to the brica- 
bric of many lands and of many centuries is a strain 
•which no wise man would dream of inflicting upon his 
constitution" 

Agnes Repplier. 



I 



In Defence of Bad Taste 



IN America, where men are supposed to know 
nothing about matters of taste and where 
women have their dresses planned for them, 
the household decorator has become an important 
factor in domestic life. Out of an even hundred 
rich men how many can say that they have had 
anything to do with the selection or arrangement 
of the furnishings for their homes? In theatre 
programs these matters are regulated and due 
credit is given to the various firms who have sup- 
plied the myriad appeals to the eye; one knows 
who thought out the combinations of shoes, hats, 
and parasols, and one knows where each separate 
article was purchased. Why could not some 
similar plan of appreciation be followed in the 
houses of our very rich? Why not, for instance, 
a card in the hall something like the following : 

This house was furnished and decorated according 
to the taste of Marcel of the Dilly -Billy Shop 

or 

We are living in the hind of house Miss Simone 
0' Kelly thought we should live in. The 

en] 



In Defence of Bad Taste 

decorations are pure Louis XV and 
the furniture is authentic. 

It is not difficult, of course, to differentiate the 
personal from the impersonal. Nothing clings so 
ill to the back as borrowed finery and I have yet 
to find the family which has settled itself fondly 
and comfortably in chairs which were a part of 
some one else's aesthetic plan. As a matter of fact 
many of our millionaires would be more at home 
in an atmosphere concocted from the ingredients 
of plain pine tables and blanket-covered mattresses 
than they are surrounded by the frippery of China 
and the frivolity of France. If these gentlemen 
were fortunate enough to enjoy sufficient confi- 
dence in their own taste to give it a thorough test 
it is not safe to think of the extreme burden that 
would be put on the working capacity of the fac- 
tories of the Grand Rapids furniture companies. 
We might find a few emancipated souls scouring 
the town for heavy refectory tables and divans into 
which one could sink, reclining or upright, with 
a perfect sense of ease, but these would be as rare 
as Steinway pianos in Coney Island. 

For Americans are meek in such matters. They 
credit themselves with no taste. They fear com- 
[12] 



In Defence of Bad Taste 

parison. If the very much sought-after Simone 
O'Kelly has decorated Mr. B.'s house Mr. M. 
does not dare to struggle along with merely his 
own ideas in furnishing his. He calls in an ex- 
pert who begins, rather inauspiciously, by paint- 
ing the dining-room salmon pink. The tables and 
chairs will be made by somebody on Tenth Street, 
exact copies of a set to be found in the Musee 
Carnavalet. The legs under the table are awk- 
wardly arranged for diners but they look very 
well when the table is unclothed. The decorator 
plans to hang Mr. M.'s personal bedroom in pale 
plum colour. Mr. M. rebels at this. " I de- 
test," he remarks mildly, " all variants of pur- 
ple." " Very well," acquiesces the decorator, " we 
will make it green." In the end Mr. M.'s worst 
premonitions are realized : the walls are resplendent 
in a striking shade of magenta. Along the edge 
of each panel of Chinese brocade a narrow band 
of absinthe velvet ribbon gives the necessary con- 
trast. The furniture is painted in dull ivory with 
touches of gold and beryl and the bed cover is 
peacock blue. Four round cushions of a similar 
shade repose on the floor at the foot of the bed. 
The fat manufacturer's wife as she enters this 
triumph of decoration which might satisfy Louise 
de la Valliere or please Doris Keane, is an ana- 
[13] 



In Defence of Bad Taste 

chronistic figure and she is aware of it. She pre- 
fers, on the whole, the brass bedsteads of the 
summer hotels. Mr. M. himself feels ridiculous. 
He never enters the room without a groan and a 
remark on the order of " Good God, what a 
colour ! " His personal taste finds its supreme en- 
joyment in the Circassian walnut panelling, desk, 
and tables of the directors' room in the Million- 
aire's Trust and Savings Bank. " Rich and taste- 
ful " : how many times he has used this phrase to 
express his approval! In the mid- Victorian red 
plush of his club, too, he is comfortable. 
" Waiter, another whiskey and soda ! " 

Mildred is expected home after her first year 
in boarding school. Her mother wishes to environ 
her, so to speak. Mildred is delicate in her tastes, 
so delicate that she scarcely ever expresses her- 
self. Her mind and body are pure; her heart 
beats faster when she learns of distress. Volup- 
tuousness, Venus, and Vice are all merely words to 
her. Mother does not explain this to the deco- 
rator. " My daughter is returning from school," 
she says, " I want her room done." " What style 
of room? " " After all you are supposed to know 
that. I am engaging you to arrange it for me." 
"Your daughter, I take it, is a modern girl?" 
" You may assume as much." In despair for a 
[14] 



In Defence of Bad Taste 

hint the decorator steals a look at a photograph 
of the miss, full-lipped, melting dark eyes, and 
blue-black hair. Sensing an houri he hangs the 
walls with a deep shade of Persian orange, over 
which flit tropical birds of emerald and azure; 
strange pomegranates bleed their seeds at regular 
intervals. The couch is an adaptation, in colour, 
of the celebrated Sumurun bed. The dressing 
table and the chaise-longue are of Chinese lacquer. 
A heavy bronze incense burner pours forth fumes 
of Bichara's Scheherazade. From the window 
frames, stifling the light, depend flame-coloured 
brocaded curtains embroidered in Egyptian 
enamelled beads. It is a triumph, this chamber, 
of style Ballet Russe. Diana is banished . . . 
and shrinking Mildred, returning from school, 
finds her demure soul at variance with her sur- 
roundings. 

A man's house should be the expression of the 
man himself. All the books on the subject and 
even the household decorators themselves will tell 
you that. But, if the decoration of a house is to 
express its owner, it is necessary that he himself 
inspire it, which implies, of course, the possession 
of ideas, even though they be bad. And men in 
these United States are not expected to display 
mental anguish or pleasure when confronted by 
[15] 



In Defence of Bad Taste 

■ * 

colour combinations. In America one is con- 
stantly hearing young ladies say, " He's a man 
and so, of course, knows nothing about colour," 
or " Of course a man never looks at clothes." It 
does not seem to be necessary to argue this point. 
One has only to remember that Veronese was a 
man; so was Velasquez. Even Paul Poiret and 
Leon Bakst belong to the sex of Adam. Never- 
theless most Americans still consider it a little 
effemine, a trifle declasse, for a business man (al- 
lowances are sometimes made for poets, musicians, 
actors, and people who live in Greenwich Village), 
to make any references to colour or form. He 
may admire, with obvious emphasis on the women 
they lightly enclose, the costumes of the Follies 
but he is not permitted to exhibit knowledge of 
materials and any suddenly expressed desire on 
his part to rush into a shop and hug some bit of 
colour from the show window to his heart would be 
regarded as a symptom of madness. 

The audience which gives the final verdict on 
a farce makes allowances for the author; permits 
him the use of certain conventions. For example, 
he is given leave to introduce a hotel corridor into 
his last act with seven doors opening on a com- 
mon hallway so that his characters may con- 
veniently and persistently enter the wrong rooms. 
[16] 



In Defence of Bad Taste 

It may be supposed that I ask for some such license 
from my audience. " How ridiculous," you may 
be saying, " I know of interior decorators who 
spend weeks in reading out the secrets of their 
clients' souls in order to provide their proper 
settings." There doubtless are interior decora- 
tors who succeed in giving a home the appearance 
of a well-kept hotel where guests may mingle com- 
fortably and freely. I should not wish to deny 
this. But I do deny that soul-study is a require- 
ment for the profession. If a man (or a woman) 
has a soul it will not be a decorator who will dis- 
cover its fitting housing. Others may object, 
" But bad taste is rampant. Surely it is better 
to be guided by some one who knows than to sur- 
round oneself with rocking chairs, plaster casts 
of the Winged Victory, and photographs of vari- 
ous madonnas." I say that it is not better. It is 
better for each man to express himself, through his 
taste, as well as through his tongue or his pen, 
as he may. And it is only through such expres- 
sion that he will finally arrive (if he ever can) at 
a condition of household furnishing which will say 
something to his neighbour as well as to himself. 
It is a pleasure when one leaves a dinner party to 
be able to observe " That is his house," just as it 
is a pleasure when one leaves a concert to remem- 
[17] 



In Defence of Bad Taste 

ber that a composer has expressed himself and 
not the result of seven years study in Berlin or 
Paris. 

But Americans have little aptitude for self-ex- 
pression. They prefer to huddle, like cattle, un- 
der unspeakable whips when matters of art are 
under discussion. They fear ridicule. As a con- 
sequence many of the richest men in this country 
never really live in their own homes, never are 
comfortable for a moment, although the walls are 
hung double with Fragonards and hawthorne 
vases stand so deep upon the tables that no space 
remains for the " Saturday Review " or " le 
Temps." And they never, never, never, will know 
the pleasure which comes while stumbling down a 
side street in London, or in the mouldy corners of 
the Venetian ghetto, or in the Marche du Temple 
in Paris, or, heaven knows, in New York, on lower 
Fourth Avenue, or in Chinatown, or in a Russian 
brass shop on Allen Street, or in a big department 
store (as often there as anywhere) in finding 
just the lamp for just the table in just the corner, 
or in discovering a bit of brocade, perhaps the 
ragged remnant of a waistcoat belonging to an 
aristocrat of the Directorate, which will lighten 
the depths of a certain room, or a chair which 
goes miraculously with a desk already possessed, 
[18] 



In Defence of Bad Taste 

or a Chinese mirror which one had almost decided 
did not exist. Nor will they ever experience the 
joy of sudden decision in front of a picture by 
Matisse, which ends in the sale of a Delacroix. 
Nor can they feel the thrill which is part of the 
replacing of a make-shift rug by the rug of rugs 
(let us hope it was Solomon's !'). 

I know a lady in Paris whose salon presents a 
different aspect each summer. Do her Picassos 
go, a new Spanish painter has replaced them. 
Have you missed the Gibbons carving? Spanish 
church carving has taken its place. " And where 
are your Venetian embroideries ? " " I sold them 
to the Marquise de V. . . . The money served to 
buy these Persian miniatures." This lady has 
travelled far. She is not experimenting in doubt- 
ful taste or bad art ; she is not even experimenting 
in her own taste: she is simply enjoying different 
epochs, different artists, different forms of art, 
each in its turn, for so long as it says anything 
to her. Her house is not a museum. Space and 
comfort demand exclusion but she excludes noth- 
ing forever that she desires. . . . She exchanges. 

Taste at best is relative. It is an axiom that 

anybody else's taste can never say anything to 

you although you may feel perfectly certain that 

it is better than your own. If more of the money 

[19] 



In Defence of Bad Taste 

of the rich were spent in encouraging children to 
develop their own ideas in furnishing their own 
rooms it would serve a better purpose than it does 
now when it is dropped into the ample pockets of 
the professional decorators. Oscar Wilde wrote, 
" A colour sense is more important in the de- 
velopment of the individual than a sense of right 
and wrong." Any young boy or girl can learn 
something about such matters ; most of them, if 
not shamed out of it, take a natural interest in 
their surroundings. You will see how true this 
is if you attempt to rearrange a child's room. 
Those who have bad taste, relatively, should liter- 
ally be allowed to make their own beds. On the 
whole it is preferable to be comfortable in red and 
green velvet upholstery than to be beautiful and 
unhappy in a household decorator's gilded cage. 
September 3, 1915. 



[20] 



Music and Supermusic 

" To know whether you are enjoying a piece of 
music or not you must see whether you find yourself 
looking at the advertisements of Pears' soap at the 
end of the program." 

Samuel Butler. 



I 



Music and Supermusic 



WHAT is the distinction in the mind of 
Everycritic between good music and 
bad music, in the mind of Everyman 
between popular music and " classical " music ? 
What is the essential difference between an air by 
Mozart and an air by Jerome Kern? Why is 
Chopin's G minor nocturne better music than 
Thecla Badarzewska's La Trier e d'une Viergef 
Why is a music drama by Richard Wagner prefer- 
able to a music drama by Horatio W. Parker? 
What makes a melody distinguished? What 
makes a melody commonplace or cheap? Why 
do some melodies ring in our ears generation after 
generation while others enj oy but a brief popular- 
ity? Why do certain composers, such as Raff and 
Mendelssohn, hailed as geniuses while they were 
yet alive, soon sink into semi-obscurity, while 
others, such as Robert Franz and Moussorgsky, 
almost unrecognized by their contemporaries, 
grow in popularity? Are there no answers to 
these conundrums and the thousand others that 
might be asked by a person with a slight attack 
of curiosity? . . . No one does ask and assuredly 
no one answers. These riddles, it would seem, are 
[23] 



Music and Supermusic 

included among the forbidden mysteries of the 
sphynx. The critics assert with authority and 
some show of erudition that the Spohrs, the 
Mendelssohns, the Humperdincks, and the Monte- 
mezzis are great composers. They usually admire 
the grandchildren of Old Lady Tradition but they 
neglect to justify this partiality. Nor can we 
trust the public with its favourite Piccinnis and 
Puccinis. . . . What then is the test of super- 
music ? 

For we know, as well as we can know anything, 
that there is music and supermusic. Rubinstein 
wrote music; Beethoven wrote supermusic (Mr. 
Finck may contradict this statement). Bellini 
wrote operas; Mozart wrote superoperas. Jen- 
sen wrote songs ; Schubert wrote supersongs. The 
superiority of Vol che sapete as a vocal melody 
over Ah! non giwnge is not generally contested; 
neither can we hesitate very long over the ques- 
tion whether or not Der Leiermann is a better song 
than Lehn 9 deine Wang 9 . Probably even Mr. Finck 
will admit that the Sonata Appassionata is finer 
music than the most familiar portrait (I think it 
is No. £2) in the Kamennoi-Ostrow set. But, if 
we agree to put Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Schu- 
bert, and a few others on marmorean pedestals 
in a special Hall of Fame (and this is a compro- 

[■»] 



Music and Supermusic 

mise on my part, at any rate, as I consider much 
of the music written by even these men to be below 
any moderately high standard), what about the 
rest? Mr. Finck prefers Johann Strauss to 
Brahms, nay more to Richard himself! He has 
written a whole book for no other reason, it would 
seem, than to prove that the author of Tod und 
Verklarung is a very much over-rated individual. 
At times sitting despondently in Carnegie Hall, I 
am secretly inclined to agree with him. Personally 
I can say that I prefer Irving Berlin's music to 
that of Edward MacDowell and I would like to 
have some one prove to me that this position is 
untenable. 

What is the test of supermusic? I have read 
that fashionable music, music composed in a style 
welcomed and appreciated by its contemporary 
hearers is seldom supermusic. Yet Handel wrote 
fashionable music, and so much other of the 
music of that epoch is Handelian that it is 
often difficult to be sure where George Frederick 
left off and somebody else began. Bellini wrote 
fashionable music and Norma and La Sonnambula 
sound a trifle faded although they are still oc- 
casionally performed, but Rossini, whose only de- 
sire was to please his public, (Liszt once observed 
"Rossini and Co. always close with ( I remain your 
[25] 



Music and Supermusic 

very humble servant ' "), wrote melodies in II Bar- 
biere di Siviglia which sound as fresh to us today as 
they did when they were first composed. And 
when this prodigiously gifted musician-cook turned 
his back to the public to write GuiUaume Tell he 
penned a work which critics have consistently told 
us is a masterpiece, but which is as seldom per- 
formed today as any opera of the early Nineteenth 
Century which occasionally gains a hearing at all. 
Therefor we must be wary of the old men who tell 
us that we shall soon tire of the music of Puccini 
because it is fashionable. 

Popularity is scarcely a test. I have mentioned 
Mendelssohn. Never was there a more popular 
composer, and yet aside from the violin concerto 
what work of his has maintained its place in the 
concert repertory? Yet Chopin, whose name is 
seldom absent from the program of a pianist, was 
a god in his own time and the most brilliant woman 
of his epoch fell in love with him, as Philip Moeller 
has recently reminded us in his very amusing play. 
On the other hand there is the case of Robert 
Franz whose songs never achieved real popular- 
ity during his lifetime, but which are frequently, 
almost invariably indeed, to be found on song re- 
cital programs today and which are more and 
more appreciated. The critics are praising him, 
[26] 



Music and Supermusic 

the public likes him: they buy his songs. And 
there is also the case of Max Reger who was not 
popular, is not popular, and never will be popular. 

Can we judge music by academic standards? 
Certainly not. Even the hoary old academicians 
themselves can answer this question correctly if 
you put it in relation to any composer born be- 
fore 1820. The greatest composers have seldom 
respected the rules. Beethoven in his last sonatas 
and string quartets slapped all the pedants in the 
ears ; yet I believe you will find astonishingly few 
rules broken by Mozart, one of the gods in the 
mythology of art music, and Berlioz, who broke 
all the rules, is more interesting to us today as a 
writer of prose than as a writer of music. 

Is simple music supermusic? Certainly not in- 
variably. Vedrai Carvno is a simple tune, almost 
as simple as a folk-song and we set great store 
by it; yet Michael William Balfe wrote twenty- 
seven operas filled with similarly simple tunes and 
in a selective draft of composers his number would 
probably be 9,768. The Ave Maria of Schubert 
is a simple tune ; so is the Meditation from Thais. 
Why do we say that one is better than the other. 

Or is supermusic always grand, sad, noble, or 
emotional? There must be another violent head 
shaking here. The air from Oberon, Ocean, thou 
[27] 



Music and Supermusic 

mighty monster, is so grand that scarcely a singer 
can be found today capable of interpreting it, al- 
though many sopranos puff and steam through it, 
for all the world like pinguid gentlemen climbing 
the stairs to the towers of Notre Dame. The 
Fifth Symphony of Beethoven is both grand and 
noble; probably no one will be found who will 
deny that it is supermusic, but Mahler's Symphony 
of the Thousand is likewise grand and noble, and 
futile and bombastic to boot. Or sai chi Vonore 
is a grand air, but Robert je tfaime is equally 
grand in intention, at least. Der Tod und das 
Madchen is sad ; so is Les Larmes in Werther. . . . 
But a very great deal of supermusic is neither 
grand nor sad. Haydn's symphonies are usually 
as light-hearted and as light-waisted as possible. 
Mozart's Figaro scarcely seems to have a care. 
Listen to Beethoven's Fourth and Eighth Sym- 
phonies, II Barbiere again, Die Meister singer. . . . 
But do not be misled: Massenet's Don Quichotte 
is light music ; so is Mascagni's Lodoletta. . . . 

Is music to be prized and taken to our hearts 
because it is contrapuntal and complex? We fre- 
quently hear it urged that Bach (who was more or 
less forgotten for a hundred years, by the way) 
was the greatest of composers and his music is es- 
pecially intricate. He is the one composer, in- 
[ 28 ] 



*— 



Music and Supermusic 

deed, who can never be played with one finger! 
But poor unimportant forgotten Max Reger also 
wrote in the most complicated forms; the great 
Gluck in the simplest. Gluck, indeed, has even 
been considered weak in counterpoint and fugue. 
Meyerbeer, it is said, was also weak in counter- 
point and fugue. Is he therefor to be regarded 
as the peer of Gluck? Is Mozart's G minor Sym- 
phony more important (because it is more com- 
plicated) than the same composer's, Batti, Batti? 
We learn from some sources that music stands 
or falls by its melody but what is good melody? 
According to his contemporaries Wagner's music 
dramas were lacking in melody. Sweet Marie is 
certainly a melody ; why is it not as good a melody 
as The Old Folks at Home? Why is Musetta's 
waltz more popular than Gretel's? It is no bet- 
ter as melody. As a matter of fact there is, has 
been, and for ever will be war over this question 
of melody, because the point of view on the subject 
is continually changing. As Cyril Scott puts it 
in his book, " The Philosophy of Modernism " : " at 
one time it (melody) extended over a few bars 
and then came to a close, being, as it were, a kind 
of sentence, which, after running for the moment, 
arrived at a full stop, or semicolon. Take this 
and compare it with the modern tendency : for that 
[29] 



Music and Supermusic 

modern tendency is to argue that a melody might 
go on indefinitely almost; there is no reason why 
it should come to a full stop, for it is not a sen- 
tence, but more a line, which, like the rambling in- 
curvations of a frieze, requires no rule to stop 
it, but alone the will and taste of its engenderer." 

Or is harmonization the important factor? 
Folk-songs are not harmonized at all, and yet 
certain musicians, Cecil Sharp for example, de- 
vote their lives to collecting them, while others, 
like Percy Grainger, base their compositions on 
them. On the other hand such music as Debussy's 
Iberia depends for its very existence on its beau- 
tiful harmonies. The harmonies of Gluck are ex- 
tremely simple, those of Richard Strauss extremely 
complex. 

H. T. Finck says somewhere that one of the 
greatest charms of music is modulation but the 
old church composers who wrote in the " modes " 
never modulated at all. Erik Satie seldom avails 
himself of this modern device. It is a question 
whether Leo Ornstein modulates. If we may take 
him at his word Arnold Schoenberg has a system 
of modulation. At least it is his very own. 

Are long compositions better than short ones? 
This may seem a silly question but I have read 
criticisms based on a theory that they were. 
[30] 



Music and Supermusic 

Listen, for example, to de Quincy : " A song, an 
air, a tune, — that is, a short succession of notes 
revolving rapidly upon itself, — how could that by 
possibility offer a field of compass sufficient for 
the development of great musical effects? The 
preparation pregnant with the future, the remote 
correspondence, the questions, as it were, which 
to a deep musical sense are asked in one passage, 
and answered in another; the iteration and in- 
gemination of a given effect, moving through sub- 
tile variations that sometimes disguise the theme, 
sometimes fitfully reveal it, sometimes throw it out 
tumultuously to the daylight, — these and ten 
thousand forms of self-conflicting musical passion 
— what room could they find, what opening, for 
utterance, in so limited a field as an air or song? " 
After this broadside permit me to quote a verse 
of Gerard de Nerval : 

" II est wn air pour qui je donnerais 
Tout Rossini y tout Mozart, et tout Weber, 
Un air tres-vieu^v, languissant et funebre, 
Qui pour moi seul a des charmes secrets" 

And now let us dispassionately, if possible, regard 
the evidence. Richard Strauss's Alpine Sym- 
phony, admittedly one of his weakest works and 
[31] 



Music and Supermusic 

considered very tiresome even by ardent Strauss- 
ians, plays for nearly an hour while any one can 
sing Der Erlkonig in three minutes. Are short 
compositions better than long ones? Answer: 
Love me and the World is Mine is a short song 
(although it seldom sounds so) while Schubert's 
C major Symphony is called the " symphony of 
heavenly length." 

Is what is new better than what is old? Is 
what is old better than what is new? Schoenberg 
is new ; is he therefor to be considered better than 
Beethoven? Stravinsky is new; is he therefor to 
be considered worse than Liszt? 

Is an opera better than a song? Compare 
Pagliacci and Strauss's Standchen. Is a string 
quartet better than a piece for the piano? But 
I grow weary. . . . Under the circumstances it 
would seem that if you have any strong opinions 
about music you are perfectly entitled to them, 
for the critics do not agree and you will find many 
of them basing their criticism on some of the 
various hypotheses I have advanced. H. T. Finck 
tells us that the sonata form is illogical, forgetting 
perhaps that once it served its purpose; Jean 
Marnold dubbed Armide an osuvre bdtarde; John 
F. Runciman called Parsifal " decrepit stuff," 
while Ernest Newman assures us that it is 
[32] 






Music and Supermusic 

" marvellous " ; Pierre Lalo and Philip Hale dis- 
agree on the subject of Debussy's La Mer while 
W. J. Henderson and James Huneker wrangle over 
Richard Strauss's Don Quixote. 

The clue to the whole matter lies in a short 
phrase: Imitative work is always bad. Music 
that tries to be something that something else has 
been may be thrown aside as worthless. It will 
not endure although it may sometimes please the 
zanies and jackoclocks of a generation. The 
critic, therefor, who comes nearest to the heart of 
the matter, is he who, either through instinct 
or familiarity with the various phenomena of 
music, is able to judge of a work's originality. 
There must be individuality in new music to make 
it worthy of our attention, and that, after all 
is all that matters. For the tiniest folk-song 
often persists in the hearts and minds of the peo- 
ple, often stirs the pulse of a musician, pursuing 
its tuneful way through two centuries, while a 
mighty thundering symphony of the same period 
may lie dead and rotting, food for the Niptus 
Hololencus and the Blatta Germanica. We still 
sing The Old Folks At Home and Le Cycle dw Vm 
but we have laid aside Di Tanti Palpiti. Any 
piece of music possessing the certain magic power 
of individuality is of value, it matters not whether 
[33] 



Music and Supermusic 

it be symphony or song, opera or dance. What \ 
most critics have forgotten is that in Music mat-. | 
ter, form, and idea are one. In painting, in? ' 
poetry the idea, the words, the form, may be sepa- 
rated ; each may play its part, but in music there 
is no idea without form, no form without idea. 
That is what makes musical criticism difficult. 

January 24-, 1918. 



[34] 



| ■ 



Edgar Saltus 

no, we never mention him, 
His name is never heard! " 

Old Ballad. 



Edgar Saltus 



TO write about Edgar Saltus should be vieux 
jeu. The man is an American; he was 
born in 1858; he accomplished some of his 
best work in the Eighties and the Nineties, in the 
days when mutton-legged sleeves, whatnots, 
Rogers groups, cat-tails, peacock feathers, Japa- 
nese fans, musk-mellon seed collars, and big- 
wheeled bicycles were in vogue. He has written 
history, fiction, poetry, literary criticism, and 
philosophy, and to all these forms he has brought 
sympathy, erudition, a fresh point of view, and 
a radiant style. He has imagination and he un- 
derstands the gentle art of arranging facts in 
kaleidoscopic patterns so that they may attract 
and not repel the reader. America, indeed, has 
not produced a round dozen authors who equal 
him as a brilliant stylist with a great deal to say. 
And yet this man, who wrote some of his best books 
in the Eighties and who is still alive, has been al- 
lowed to drift into comparative oblivion. Even 
his early reviewers shoved him impatiently aside 
or ignored^him altogether; a writer in " Belford's 
Magazine " for July, 1888, says : " Edgar Saltus 
should have his name changed to Edgar As- 
[37] 



Edgar Saltus 



saulted." Soon he became a literary leper. The 
doctors and professors would have none of him. 
To most of them, nowadays, I suppose, he is only 
a name. Many of them have never read any of 
his books. I do not even remember to have seen 
him mentioned in the works of James Huneker 
and you will not find his name in Barrett Wen- 
dell's " A History of American Literature " 
(1901), " A Reader's History of American Litera- 
ture " by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and 
Henry Walcott Boynton (1903), Katherine Lee 
Bates's "American Literature" (1898), "A 
Manual of American Literature," edited by Theo- 
dore Stanton (1909), William B. Cairns's "A 
History of American Literature " (1912), William 
Edward Simonds's " A Student's History of 
American Literature" (1909), Fred Lewis Pat- 
tee's " A History of American Literature Since 
1870" (1915), John Macy's "The Spirit of 
American Literature" (1913), or William Lyon 
Phelps's "The Advance of the English Novel" 
(1916). The third volume of "The Cambridge 
History of American Literature," bringing the 
subject up to 1900, has not yet appeared but I 
should be amazed to discover that the editors had 
decided to include Saltus therein. Curiously 
enough he is mentioned in Oscar Fay Adams's " A 
[ 38 ] 



Edgar Saltus 



Dictionary of American Authors " (1901 edition) 
and, of all places, I have found a reference to 
him in one of Agnes Repplier's books. 

You will find few essays about the man or his 
work in current or anterior periodicals. There 
is, to be sure, the article by Ramsay Colles, 
entitled " A Publicist : Edgar Saltus," published 
in the " Westminster Magazine " for October, 
1904, but this essay could have won our author no 
adherents. If any one had the courage to wade 
through its muddy paragraphs he doubtless 
emerged vowing never to read Saltus. Besides 
only the novels are touched on. In 1903 G. F. 
Monkshood and George Gamble arranged a com- 
pilation from Saltus's work which they entitled 
" Wit and Wisdom from Edgar Saltus " (Green- 
ing and Co., London). The work is done without 
sense or sensitiveness and the prefatory essay 
is without salt or flavour of any sort. An 
anonymous writer in " Current Literature " for 
July, 1907, asks plaintively why this author has 
been permitted to remain in obscurity and quotes 
from some of the reviews. In " The Philistine " 
for October, 1907, Elbert Hubbard takes a hand 
in the game. He says, " Edgar Saltus is the best 
writer in America — with a few insignificant ex- 
ceptions," but he deplores the fact that Saltus 
[39] 



Edgar S altu s 



knows nothing about the cows and chickens ; only 
cities and gods seem to interest him. Still there 
is some atmosphere in this study, which is devoted 
to one book, " The Lords of the Ghostland." In 
the New York Public Library four of Saltus's 
books and one of his translations (about one- 
sixth of his published work) are listed. You may 
also find there in a series of volumes entitled " Na- 
tions of the World " his supplementary chapters 
bringing the books up to date. That is all. 

All these years, of course, Saltus has had his 
admiring circle, 1 people of intelligence, of whom, 
unfortunately, I cannot say that I was one. 
These, who have been content to read and admire 
without spreading the news, may well be inclined 
to regard my performance as repetitive and im- 
pertinent. Of these I must crave indulgence and 
of Saltus himself too. For he, knowing how well 
he has done his work, must sit like Buddha, ironic 
and indulgent, smiling on the poor benighted who 
have yet to approach his altars. Once, at least, 
he spoke : " A book that pleases no one may be 
poor. The book that pleases every one is de- 
testable." 

1 One evidence of this is that his works are eagerly sought 
after and treated tenderly by the second-hand book-sellers. 
Some of them command fancy prices. 

[40] 



\ 



Edgar S altus 



I seem to remember to have heard his name all 
my life, but until recently I have not read one 
line concerning or by him. I find that my friends, 
many of whom are extensive readers, are in the 
same sad state of ignorance. There is an excep- 
tion and that exception is responsible for my con- 
version. For six years, no less, Edna Kenton has 
been urging me to read Edgar Saltus. She has 
been gently insinuating but firm. None of us can 
struggle forever against fate or a determined 
woman. In the end I capitulated, purchased a 
book by Edgar Saltus at random, and read it 
... at one sitting. I sought for more. As most 
of his books are out of print and as the list in 
the Public Library conspicuously omits all but 
one of his best opera the matter presented diffi- 
culties. However, a little diligent search in the 
old book shops accomplished wonders. In less 
than two weeks I had dug up twenty-two titles 
and in less than two weeks I had read twenty- 
four; since then I have consumed the other four. 
There are few writers in American or any other 
literature who can survive such a test; there are 
few writers who have given me such keen pleasure. 

The events of his life, mostly remain shrouded 
in mystery. His comings and 'goings are not re- 
ported in the newspapers ; he does not make pub- 



Edgar Sal tu s 



lie speeches ; and his name is seldom, if ever, men- 
tioned " among those present." That he has been 
married and has one daughter " Who's Who " 
proclaims, together with the few biographical de- 
tails mentioned below. That is all. May we not 
herein find some small explanation for his ap- 
parent neglect? Many thousands of lesser men 
have lifted themselves to " literary " prominence 
by blowing their own tubas and striking their own 
crotals. Even in the case of a man of such mani- 
fest genius as George Bernard Shaw we may 
be permitted to doubt if he would be so well known, 
had he not taken the trouble to erect monuments 
to himself on every possible occasion in every 
possible location. Fame is a quaint old-fash- 
ioned body, who loves to be pursued. She seldom, 
if ever, runs after anybody except in her well- 
known role of necrophile. 

Edgar Evertson Saltus was born in New York 
City June 8, 1858. He is a lineal descendant of 
Admiral Kornelis Evertson, the commander of the 
Dutch fleet, who captured New York from the Eng- 
lish, August 9, 1673. Francis Saltus, the poet, 
was his brother. He enjoyed a cosmopolitan edu- 
cation which may be regarded as an important 
factor in the development of his tastes and ideas. 
From St. Paul's School in Concord he migrated to 
[43] 



I 



■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■MHM 



Edgar S altus 



the Sorbonne in Paris, and thence to Heidelberg 
and Munich, where he bathed in the newer Ger- 
manic philosophies. Finally he took a course of 
law at Columbia University. The influence of 
this somewhat heterogeneous seminary life is mani- 
fest in all his future writing. Beginning, no 
doubt, as a disciple of Emerson in New England, 
he fell under the spell of Balzac in Paris, of 
Schopenhauer and von Hartmann in Germany. 
Pages might be brought forward as evidence that 
he had a thorough classical education. His 
knowledge of languages made it easy for him to 
drink deeply at many fountain heads. If Oscar 
Wilde found his chief inspiration in Huysmans's 
" A Rebours," it is certain that Saltus also quaffed 
intoxicating draughts at this source. Indeed in 
one of his books he refers to Huysmans as his 
friend. It is further apparent that he is ac- 
quainted with the works of Barbey d'Aurevilly, 
Josephin Peladan, 1 Baudelaire, Mallarme, Verlaine, 
Arthur Rimbaud, Catulle Mendes, and Jules 
Laforgue, especially the Laforgue of the " Moral- 
ites Legendaires." His kinship with these writers 
is near, but through this mixed blood run strains 
inherited from the early pagans, the mediaeval 

i For an account of Peladan see my essay on Erik Satie 
in " Interpreters and Interpretations." 



[43] 



Edgar Saltus 



monks, the Germanic philosophers, and London of 
the Eighteen Nineties (although there is not one 
word about Saltus in Holbrook Jackson's book of 
the period), and perhaps, after all, his nearest lit- 
erary relative was an American, Edgar Allan Poe, 
who bequeathed to him a garret full of strange 
odds and ends. But Saltus surpasses Poe in al- 
most every respect save as a poet. 

Joseph Hergesheimer has expressed a theory to 
the effect that great art is always provincial, never 
cosmopolitan ; that only provincial art is universal 
in its appeal. Like every other theory this one is 
to a large extent true, but Hergesheimer in his ar- 
bitrary summing up, has forgotten the fantastic. 
The fantastic in literature, in art of any kind, can 
never be provincial. The work of Poe is not pro- 
vincial; nor is that of Gustave Moreau, an artist 
with whom Edgar Saltus can very readily be com- 
pared. If you have visited the Musee Moreau in 
Paris where, in the studio of the dead painter, is 
gathered together the most complete collection of 
his works, which lend themselves to endless inspec- 
tion, you can, in a sense, reconstruct for yourself 
an idea of the works of Edgar Saltus. One finds 
therein the same unicorns, the same fabulous mon- 
sters, the same virgins on the rocks, the same ex- 
otic and undreamed of flora and fauna, the same 
[ 44] 






_ 



Edgar S altu s 



mystic paganism, the same exquisitely jewelled 
workmanship. One can find further analogies in 
the Aubrey Beardsley of " Under the Hill," in the 
elaborate stylized irony of Max Beerbohm. 
Surely not provincials these, but just as surely 
artists. 

Moreover Saltus's style may be said to possess 
American characteristics. It is dashing and 
rapid, and as clear as the water in Southern seas. 
The man has a penchant for short and nervous 
sentences, but they are never jerky. They ex- 
plode like so many firecrackers and remind one 
of the great national holiday ! . . . Nevertheless 
Edgar Saltus should have been born in France. 

His essays, whether they deal with literary 
criticism, history, religion (which is almost an 
obsession with this writer), devil-worship, or cook- 
ing, are pervaded by that rare quality, charm. 
Somewhere he quotes a French aphorism : 

" Eire riche n'est pas Faff aire, 
Toute V affaire est de charmer" 

which might be applied to his own work. There 
is a deep and beneficent guile in the simplicity of 
his style, as limpid as a brook, and yet, as over a 
brook, in its overtones hover a myriad of spark- 
[45] 



Edgar Saltus 



ling dragon-flies and butterflies; in its depths lie 
a plethora of trout. He deals with the most ob- 
struse and abstract subjects with such ease and 
grace, without for one moment laying aside the 
badge of authority, that they assume a mysteri- 
ous fascination to catch the eye of the passerby. 
In his fictions he has sometimes cultivated a more 
hectic style, but that in itself constitutes one of 
the bases of its richness. Scarcely a word but 
evokes an image, a strange, bizarre image, often a 
complication of images. He is never afraid of 
the colloquial, never afraid of slang even, and he 
often weaves lovely patterns with obsolete or tech- 
nical words. These lines, in which Saltus paid 
tribute to Gautier, he might, with equal justice, 
have applied to himself : " No one could torment 
a fancy more delicately than he ; he had the gift of 
adjective; he scented a new one afar like a truffle; 
and from the Morgue of the dictionary he dragged 
forgotten beauties. He dowered the language of 
his day with every tint of dawn and every convul- 
sion of sunset; he invented metaphors that were 
worth a king's ransom, and figures of speech that 
deserve the Prix Montyon. Then reviewing his 
work, he formulated an axiom which will go down 
with a nimbus through time: Whomsoever a 
thought however complex, a vision however apoca- 
[46] 






Edgar S altus 



lyptic, surprises without words to convey it, is not 
a writer. The inexpressible does not exist." It 
is impossible to taste at this man's table. One 
must eat the whole dinner to appreciate its opulent 
inevitability. Still I may offer a few olives, a 
branch or two of succulent celery to those who 
have not as yet been invited to sit down. One of 
his ladies walks the Avenue in a gown the " color of 
fried smelts." Such figurative phrases as " Her 
eyes were of that green-grey which is caught in 
an icicle held over grass," " The sand is as fine as 
face powder, nuance Rachel, packed hard," 
" Death, it may be, is not merely a law but a place, 
perhaps a garage which the traveller reaches on a 
demolished motor, but whence none can proceed 
until all old scores are paid," " The ocean resem- 
bled nothing so much as an immense blue syrup," 
" She was a pale freckled girl, with hair the shade 
of Bavarian beer," " The sun rose from the ocean 
like an indolent girl from her bath," " Night, that 
queen who reigns only when she falls, shook out the 
shroud she wears for gown," are to be found on 
every page. Certain phrases sound good to him 
and are re-used : " Disappearances are decep- 
tive," " ruedelapaixian " (to describe a dress), 
" toilet of the ring " (lifted from the bull-fight in 
" Mr. Incoul's Misadventure " to do service in an 
[47] 



Edgar S altu s 



account of the arena games under Nero in " Im- 
perial Purple " ) , but repetition of this kind is in- 
frequent in his works and seemingly unnecessary. 
Ideas and phrases, endless chains of them, spurt 
from the point of his ardent pen. Standing on his 
magic carpet he shakes new sins out of his sleeve as 
a conjurer shakes out white rabbits and juggles 
words with an exquisite dexterity. He is, indeed, 
the jongleur de noire time! 

From the beginning, his style has attracted the 
attention of the few and no one, I am sure, has 
ever written a three line review of a book by 
Saltus without referring to it. Mme. Amelie 
Rives has quoted Oscar Wilde as saying to her one 
night at dinner, " In Edgar Saltus's work passion 
struggles with grammar on every page I " Perci- 
val Pollard has dubbed him a " prose paranoiac," 
and Elbert Hubbard says, " He writes so well that 
he grows enamoured of his own style and is sub- 
dued like the dyer's hand; he becomes intoxicated 
on the lure of lines and the roll of phrases. He 
is woozy on words — locoed by syntax and pros- 
ody. The libation he pours is flavoured with eu- 
phues. It is all like a cherry in a morning Mar- 
tini." A phrase which Remy de Gourmont uses 
to describe Villiers de l'Isle Adam might be applied 
with equal success to the author of " The Lords of 
[48] 



Edgar S altu s 



the Ghostland " : " Uidealisme de Villiers etait an 
veritable idealisme verbal, c'est-a-dire qu'il croyait 
uraiment a, la puissance evocatrice des mots, a 
leur vertu magique." And we may listen to Sal- 
tus's own testimony in the matter : " It may be 
noted that in literature only three things count, 
style, style polished, style repolished; these 
imagination and the art of transition aid, but do 
not enhance. As for style, it may be defined as the 
sorcery of syllables, the fall of sentences, the use 
of the exact term, the pursuit of a repetition 
even unto the thirtieth and fortieth line. Gram- 
mar is an adjunct but not an obligation. No 
grammarian ever wrote a thing that was fit to 
read." 

At his worst — and his worst can be monstrous ! 
— garbed fantastically in purple patches and 
gaudy rags, he wallows in muddy puddles of Bur- 
gundy and gold dust; even then he is unflagging 
and holds the attention in a vise. His women 
have eyes which are purple pools, their hair is 
bitten by combs, their lips are scarlet threads. 
Even the names of his characters, Roanoke Rari- 
tan, Ruis Ixar, Tancred Ennever, Erastus Varick, 
Gulian Verplank, Melancthon Orr, Justine Dun- 
nellen, Roland Mistrial, Giselle Oppensheim, Yoda 
Jones, Stella Sixmuth, Violet Silverstairs, Sallie 
[ 49 ] 



Edgar S al tu s 



Malakoff, Shane Wyvell, Dugald Maule, Eden 
Menemon (it will be observed that he has a per- 
sistent, balefully procacious, perhaps, indeed, 
Freudian predilection for the letters U, V, and 
X), 1 are fantastic and fabulous . . . sometimes 
almost frivolous. And here we may find our 
paradox. His sense of humour is abnormal, 
sometimes expressed directly by way of epi- 
gram or sly wording but may it not also occa- 
sionally express itself indirectly in these purple 
towers of painted velvet words, extravagant 
fables, and unbelievable characters he is so fond of 
erecting? Some of his work almost approaches 
the burlesque in form. He carries his manner to 
a point where he seems to laugh at it himself, and 
then, with a touch of poignant realism or a poetic 
phrase, he confounds the reader's judgment. The 
virtuosity of the performance is breath-taking! 

He is always the snob (somewhere he defends the 
snob in an essay) : rich food ("half-mourning" 
[artichoke hearts and truffles], " filet of reindeer," 
a cygnet in its plumage bearing an orchid in its 
beak, " heron's eggs whipped with wine into an 

i You will find an account of Balzac's interesting theory- 
regarding names and letters, which may well have had a di- 
rect influence on Edgar Saltus, in Saltus's " Balzac," p. 29 
et seq. For a precisely contrary theory turn to " The Nam- 
ing of Streets " in Max Beerbohm's " Yet Again." 

[50] 



Edgar S altu s 



amber foam," " mashed grasshoppers baked in 
saffron"), rich clothes, rich people interest him. 
There is no poverty in his books. His creatures 
do not toil. They cut coupons off bonds. Some- 
times they write or paint, but for the most part 
they are free to devote themselves exclusively to 
the pursuit of emotional experience, eating, read- 
ing, and travelling the while. And when they 
have finished dining they wipe their hands, wetted 
in a golden bowl, in the curly hair of a tiny serv- 
ing boy. A character in " Madam Sapphira " 
explains this tendency : " A writer, if he happens 
to be worth his syndicate, never chooses a sub- 
ject. The subject chooses him. He writes what 
he must, not what he might. That's the thing the 
public can't understand." 

There is always a preoccupation with ancient 
life, sometimes freely expressed as in " Imperial 
Purple," but more often suggested by plot, phrase, 
or scene. He kills more people than Caligula 
killed during the whole course of his bloody reign. 
Murders, suicides, and other forms of sudden death 
flash their sensations across his pages. Webster 
and the other Elizabethans never steeped themselves 
so completely in gore. In almost every book there 
is an orgy of death and he has been ingenious in 
varying its forms. The poisons of rafflesia, 
[51] 



Edgar S al tu s 



muscarine, and orsere are introduced in his fic- 
tions ; somewhere he devotes an essay to toxicology. 
Daggers with blades like needles, pistols, drown- 
ings, asphyxiations, play their roles . . . and in 
one book there is a crucifixion ! 

Again I find that Mr. Saltus has said his word 
on the subject: "In fiction as in history it is 
the shudder that tells. Hugo could find no higher 
compliment for Baudelaire than to announce that 
the latter had discovered a new one. For new 
shudders are as rare as new vices ; antiquity has 
made them all seem trite. The apt commingling 
of the horrible and the trivial, pathos and ferocity, 
is yet the one secret of enduring work — a secret, 
parenthetically, which Hugo knew as no one else." 

His fables depend in most instances upon sexual 
abberrations, curious coincidences, fantastic hap- 
penings. Rapes and incests decorate his pages. 
He does not ask us to believe his monstrous 
stories ; he compels us to. He carries us by 
means of the careless expenditure of many pas- 
sages of somewhat ribald beauty, along with him, 
captive to his pervasive charm. We are con- 
stantly reminded, in endless, almost wearisome, 
imagery, of gold and purple, foreign languages, 
esoteric philosophies, foods the names of which 
[52] 



m 



Edgar S altus 



strike the ear as graciously as they themselves 
might strike the tongue. From Huysmans he has 
learned the formula for ravishing all our senses. 
Words are often used for their own sakes to call 
up images, colour flits across every page, across, 
indeed, every line. We taste, we smell, we see. 
There is the pomp and circumstance of the Roman 
Catholic ritual in these pages, the Roman Catholic 
ritual well supplied with mythical monsters, sing- 
ing flowers, and blooming women. Strange scar- 
let and mulberry threads form the woof of these 
tapestries, threads pulled with great labour from 
all the art of the past. There is, in much of his 
work, an undercurrent of subtle sensuous erotic 
poison ; in one of her stories Edna Kenton tells us 
that chartreuse jaune and bananas form such a 
poison. There is a suggestion of chartreuse jaune 
and bananas in much of the work of Edgar Saltus. 
He is constantly obsessed by the mysteries of 
love and death, the veils of Isis, the secrets of 
Moses. While others were delving in the Amer- 
ican soil his soul sped afar; he is not even a cos- 
mopolitan ; he is a Greek, a Brahmin, a worship- 
per of Ishtar. There is a prodigious and prodigal 
display of genius in his work, savannahs of epi- 
grams, forests of ideas, phrases enough to fill the 
[ 53 ] 



Edgar Saltu s 



ocean. 1 There is enough material in the romances 
of Edgar Saltus to furnish all the cinema com- 
panies in America with scenarios for a twelve- 
month. 

Early in the Eighties a writer in " The Argus " 
referred to him as " the prose laureate of pes- 
simism." His philosophy may be summed up in a 
few phrases : Nothing matters, Whatever will be 
is, Everything is possible, and Since we live today 
let us make the best of it and live in Paris. And 
through all the opera of Saltus, through the rapes 
and murders, the religious, philosophical, and so- 
cial discussions, rings Cherubino's still unanswered 
question, Che cosa e amor? like a persistent refrain. 

After having said so much it seems unnecessary 

to add that I strongly advise the reader to go out 

and buy all the books of Edgar Saltus he can 

find (and to find many will require patience and 

dexterity, as most of them are out of print). To 

further aid him in the matter I have prepared a 

short catalogue and with his permission I will 

guide him gently through this new land. I have 

also added a list of publishers, together with the 

dates of publication, although I cannot, in some 

i"Wit and Wisdom from Edgar Saltus" by G. F. 
Monkshood and George Gamble, and "The Cynic's Posy," 
a collection of epigrams, the majority of which are taken 
from Saltus, may be brought forward in evidence. 

[54] 






Edgar Sal tu s 



instances, vouch for their having been the orig- 
inal imprints. It may be noted that almost all his 
books have been reprinted in England. 1 

" Balzac," 2 signed Edgar Evertson Saltus (for 
a time he used his full name) is such good literary 
criticism and such good personal biography that 
one wishes the author had tried the form again. 
He did not save in his prefaces to his translations, 
his essay on Victor Hugo, and his short study of 
Oscar Wilde. In its miniature way, for the book 
is slight, " Balzac " is as good of its kind as James 
Huneker's " Chopin," Auguste Ehrhard's " Fanny 
Elssler," and Frank Harris's " Oscar Wilde." In 
style it is superior to any of these. It is a very 
pretty performance for a debut and if it is out 
of print, as I think it is, some enterprising pub- 
lisher should serve it to the public in a new edition. 
The two most interesting chapters, largely anec- 
dotal but continuously illuminating, are entitled 
" The Vagaries of Genius," wherein one may find 
an infinitude of details concerning the manner in 

i Certain books by Edgar Saltus have been announced 
from time to time but have never appeared; these include: 
" Annochiatura," " Immortal Greece," " Our Lady of 
Beauty," " Cimmeria," "Daughters of Dream," "Scaffolds 
and Altars," "Prince Charming," and "The Crimson Cur- 
tain." 

2 Houghton, Mifflin and Co.; 1884. Reprinted 1887 and 
1890. 

[55] 



Edgar Saltus 



which Balzac worked, and " The Chase for Gold," 
but tucked in somewhere else is a charming digres- 
sion about realism in fiction and the bibliography 
should still be of use to students. Saltus tells 
us that Balzac took all his characters' names from 
life, frequently from signs which he observed on the 
street. In this respect Saltus certainly has not 
followed him; in another he has been more im- 
itative: I refer to the Balzacian trick of carry- 
ing people from one book to another. 

" The Philosophy of Disenchantment " 1 is an 
ingratiating account of the pessimism of Schopen- 
hauer, a philosophy with which it would seem, Sal- 
tus is fully in accord. Two-thirds of the book is 
allotted to Schopenhauer, but the remainder is 
devoted to an exposition of the teachings of von 
Hartmann and a final essay, " Is Life an Afflic- 
tion? " which query the author seems to answer in 
the affirmative. One of the best-known of the 
Saltus books, " The Philosophy of Disenchant- 
ment " is written in a clear, translucent style 
without the iridescence which decorates his later 
opera. 

" After-Dinner Stories from Balzac, done into 
English by Myndart Verelst (obviously E. S.) 

i Houghton, Mifflin and Co.; 1885. Reprinted by the Bel- 
ford Co. 

[56] 






Edgar Saltus 



with an introduction by Edgar Saltus " 1 contains 
four of the Frenchman's tales, " The Red Inn," 
" Madame Firmiani," " The 'Grande Breteche '," 
and " Madame de Beauseant." The introduction 
is written in Saltus's most beguiling manner and 
may be referred to as one of the most delightful 
short essays on Balzac extant. The dedication is 
to V. A. B. 

" The Anatomy of Negation " 2 is Saltus's best 
book in his earlier manner, which is as free from 
flamboyancy as early Gothic, and one of his most 
important contributions to our literature. The 
work is a history of antitheism from Kapila to 
Leconte de Lisle and, while the writer in a brief 
prefatory notice disavows all responsibility for 
the opinions of others, it can readily be felt that 
the book is a labour of love and that his sympathy 
lies with the iconoclasts through the centuries. 
The chapter entitled, " The Convulsions of the 
Church," a brief history of Christianity, is one of 
the most brilliant passages to be found in any of 
the works of this very brilliant writer. Indeed, if 
you are searching for the soul of Saltus you could 
not do better than turn to this chapter. Of 

i George J. Coombes; 1886. Reprinted by Brentano's. 
zScribner and Welford; 1887. Revised edition, Belford, 
Clarke and Co.; 1889. 



[57] 



Edgar Saltus 



Jesus he says, " He was the most entrancing of 
nihilists but no innovator." Here is another ex- 
cerpt : " Paganism was not dead ; it had merely 
fallen asleep. Isis gave way to Mary ; apotheosis 
was replaced by canonization; the divinities were 
succeeded by saints ; and, Africa aiding, the 
Church surged from mythology with the Trinity 
for tiara." Again : " Satan was Jew from horn 
to hoof. The registry of his birth is contained in 
the evolution of Hebraic thought." Never was 
any book so full of erudition and ideas so easy to 
read, a fascinating opus, written by a true scep- 
tic. Following the Baedeker system, adopted so 
amusingly by Henry T. Finck in his " Songs and 
Song Writers," this book should be triple-starred. 

" Tales before Supper, from Theophile Gautier 
and Prosper Merimee, told in English by Myndart 
Verelst and delayed with a proem by Edgar Sal- 
tus." * Translation again. The stories are 
" Avatar " and " The Venus of Ille." The essay 
at the beginning is a very charming performance. 
This book is dedicated to E. C. R. 

" Mr. Incoul's Misadventure," 2 Saltus's first 
novel, is also the best of his numerous fictions. It, 
too, should be triple-starred in any guide book 



iBrentano's; 1887. 

2 Benjamin and Bell; 1887. 

[58] 



-. 



Edgar S al tu s 



through this opus-land. In it will be found, super- 
distilled, the very essence of all the best qualities 
of this writer. It is written with fine reserve ; 
the story holds ; the characters are unusually well 
observed, felt, and expressed. Irony shines 
through the pages and the final cadence includes a 
murder and a suicide. For the former, bromide 
of potassium and gas are utilized in combination; 
for the latter laudanum, taken hypodermically, 
suffices. There are scenes in Biarritz and North- 
ern Spain which include a thrilling picture of a 
bull-fight. There is an interesting glimpse of the 
Paris Opera. There is a description of an epi- 
thumetic library which embraces many forbidden 
titles, (How that " baron of moral endeavour . . . 
the professional hound of heaven," Anthony Corn- 
stock, would have gloated over these shelves!), a 
vibrant page about Goya, and another about a 
Thibetian cat. Many passages could be brought 
forward as evidence that Mr. Saltus loves the fire- 
side sphynx. The Mr. Incoul of the title gives one 
a very excellent idea of how inhuman a just man 
can be. There is not a single slip in the skilful 
delineation of this monster. The beautiful heroine 
vaguely shambles into a tapestried background. 
She is moyen age in her appealing weakness. The 
jeune premier, Lenox Leigh, is well drawn and 
[59] 



Edgar S altu s 



lighted. Time after time the author strikes subtle 
harmonies which must have delighted Henry 
James. Why is this book not dedicated to the 
author of " The Turn of the Screw " rather than 
to " E. A. S."? The pages are permeated with 
suspense, horror, information, irony, and charm, 
about evenly distributed, all of which qualities are 
expressed in the astounding title (astounding after 
you have read the book). There is a white mar- 
riage in this tale, stipulated in the hymeneal bond. 
In 1877 Tschaikovsky made a similar agreement 
with the woman he married. 

" The Truth About Tristrem Varick " * is writ- 
ten with the same restraint which characterizes the 
style of " Mr. Incoul's Misadventure," a restraint 
seldom to be encountered in Saltus's later fictions. 
One of the angles of the plot in which an irate 
father attempts to suppress a marriage by sug- 
gesting incest, bobs up twice again in his stories, 
for the last time nearly thirty years later in 
" The Monster." Irony is the keynote of the 
work, a keynote sounded in the dedication, " To 
my master, the philosopher of the unconscious, 
Eduard von Hartmann, this attempt in ornamen- 
tal disenchantment is dutifully inscribed." The 
heroine, as frequently happens with Saltus hero- 

iBelford Co.; 1888. 

[60] 






Edgar S al tu s 



ines, is veiled with the mysteries of Isis ; we do 
not see the workings of her mind and so we can 
sympathize with Varick, who pursues her with 
persistent misunderstanding and arduous devotion 
through 240 pages. He attributes her aloofness 
to his father's unfounded charge against his 
mother and her father. When he learns that she 
has borne a child he suspects rape and, with a 
needle-like dagger that leaves no sign, he kills the 
man he believes to have seduced her. Then he 
goes to the lady to receive her thanks, only to learn 
that she loved the man he has killed. Varick 
gives himself into the hands of the police, con- 
fesses, and is delivered to justice, the lady gloat- 
ing. A strikingly pessimistic tale, only less good 
than " Mr. Incoul." There is superb writing in 
these pages, many delightful passages. La Cener- 
entola and Lucrezia Borgia are mentioned in pass- 
ing. Saltus has (or had) an exuberant fondness 
for Donizetti and Rossini. Here is a telling bit 
of art criticism (attributed to a character) de- 
scriptive of the Paris Salon : " There was a 
Manet or two, a Moreau and a dozen excellent 
landscapes, but the rest represented the apotheosis 
of mediocrity. The pictures which Gerome, 
Cabanel, Bouguereau, and the acolytes of these 
pastry-cooks exposed were stupid and sterile as 
[61] 



Edgar Saltus 



church doors." This required courage in 1888. 
One wonders where Kenyon Cox was at the time ! 
Give this book at least two stars. 

" Eden " * is the third of Saltus's fictions and 
possibly the poorest of the three. Eden is the 
name of the heroine whose further name is Mene- 
mon. Stuyvesant Square is her original habitat 
but she migrates to Fifth Avenue. The tide is 
flowing South again nowadays. Her husband is 
almost too good, but nevertheless appearances 
seem against him until he explains that the lady 
with whom he has been seen in a cab is his daugh- 
ter by a former marriage, and the young man who 
seems to have been making love to Eden is his son. 
Characteristic of Saltus is the use of the Spanish 
word for nightingale. There are no deaths, no 
suicides, no murders in these pages: a very 
eunuch of a book ! A motto from Tasso, " Perdute 
e tutto il tempo che m amor non si spende " adorns 
the title page and the work is dedicated to 
" E » H Amicissima." 

With " The Pace that Kills " 2 Saltus doffs his 
old coat and dons a new and gaudier garment. 
Possibly he owed this change in style to the influ- 
ence of the London movement so interestingly de- 



i Belford, Clarke and Co. ; 1888. 
2 Belford Co. ; 1889. 

[6a] 



-" I 



Edgar Saltus 



scribed in Holbrook Jackson's " The Eighteen- 
Nineties." The book begins with abortion and 
ends with a drop over a ferry-boat into the icy 
East River. There is an averted strangulation of 
a baby and for the second time in a Saltus opus a 
dying millionaire leaves his fortune to the St. 
Nicholas Hospital. Was Saltus ballyhooing for 
this institution? The hero is a modern Don Juan. 
Alphabet Jones appears occasionally, as he does in 
many of the other novels. This Balzacian trick 
obsessed the author for a time. The book is 
dedicated to John S. Rutherford and bears as a 
motto on its title page this quotation from Rabus- 
son: " Fourquoi la mortf Dites, plutot, pour- 
quoi la vie? " 

In " A Transaction in Hearts " 1 the Reverend 
Christopher Gonfallon falls in love with his wife's 
sister, Claire. A New England countess, a sub- 
sidiary figure, suggests d'Aurevilly. This story 
originally appeared in " Lippincott's Magazine " 
and the editor who accepted it was dismissed. A 
year or so later a new editor published " The Pic- 
ture of Dorian Gray." Still later Saltus tells me 
he met Oscar Wilde in London and the Irish poet 
asked him for news of the new editor. " He's quite 
well," answered Saltus. Wilde did not seem to be 

iBelford Co.; 1889. 

[63] 



Edgar Saltus 



pleased : " When your story appeared the editor 
was removed; when mine appeared I supposed he 
would be hanged. Now you tell me he is quite 
well. It is most disheartening." Saltus then 
asked Wilde why Dorian Gray was cut by his 
friends. Wilde turned it over. " I fancy they 
saw him eating fish with his knife." 

" A Transient Guest and other Episodes " 1 con- 
tains three short tales besides the title story: 
" The Grand Duke's Riches," an account of an 
ingenious robbery at the Brevoort, " A Maid of 
Athens," and " Fausta," a story of love, revenge, 
and death in Cuba. If the final cadence of the 
book is a dagger thrust the prelude is a subtle poi- 
son, rafflesia, a Sumatran plant, intended for the 
hero, Tancred Ennever, but consumed with fatal 
results by his faithful fox terrior, Zut Alors. 
The story is arresting and, as frequently happens 
in Saltus romances, a man finds himself no match 
for a woman. " A Transient Guest " is dedicated 
to K. J. M. 

The slender volume entitled " Love and Lore " 2 
contains a short series of slight essays, interrupted 
by slighter sonnets, on subjects which, for the 
most part, Saltus has treated at greater length 

iBelford, Clarke and Co.; 1889. 
2Belford Co.; 1890. 



[64] 






Edgar Saltus 



and with greater effect elsewhere. He makes a 
whimsical plea for a modern revival of the Court 
of Love and in " Morality in Fiction " he derides 
that Puritanism in American letters whose dark 
scourge H. L. Mencken still pursues with a cat-o'- 
nine-tails and a hand grenade. He gives us a fan- 
ciful set of rules for a novelist which, happily, he 
has ignored in his own fictions. The most inter- 
esting, personal, and charming chapter, although 
palpably derived from " The Philosophy of Dis- 
enchantment," is that entitled " What Pessimism 
Is Not " ; here again we are in the heart of the 
author's philosophy. Those who like to read 
books about the Iberian Peninsula can scarcely 
afford to miss " Fabulous Andalucia," in which an 
able brief for the race of Othello is presented: 
" Under the Moors, Cordova surpassed Baghdad. 
They wrote more poetry than all the other nations 
put together. It was they who invented rhyme; 
they wrote everything in it, contracts, challenges, 
treaties, treatises, diplomatic notes and messages 
of love. From the earliest khalyf down to Boab- 
dil, the courts of Granada, of Cordova and of 
Seville were peopled with poets, or, as they were 
termed, with makers of Ghazels. It was they who 
gave us the dulcimer, the hautbois and the guitar; 
it was they who invented the serenade. We are 
[65] 



Edgar Saltu s 



indebted to them for algebra and for the canons of 
chivalry as well. ... It was from them that came 
the first threads of light which preceded the 
Renaissance. Throughout mediaeval Europe they 
were the only people that thought." The book is 
dedicated to Edgar Fawcett, " perfect poet -^ 
perfect friend " and is embellished with a portrait 
of its author. 

" The Story Without a Name " 1 is a transla- 
tion of " Une Histoire Sans Nom " of Barbey 
d'Aurevilly, and is preceded by one of Saltus's 
charming and atmospheric literary essays, the best 
on d'Aurevilly to be found in English. When this 
book first appeared, Mr. Saltus informs me, a re- 
viewer, " who contrived to be both amusing and 
complimentary," said that Barbey d'Aurevilly was 
a fictitious person and that this vile story was 
Saltus's own vile work ! 

" Mary Magdalen," 2 on the whole disappoint- 
ing, is nevertheless one of the important Sal- 
tus opera. The opening chapters, like Oscar 
Wilde's Salome (published two years later than 
"Mary Magdalen") owe much to Flaubert's 
" Herodias." The dance on the hands is a detail 

iBelford Co.; 1891. 

aBelford Co.; 1891. Reprinted by Mitchell Kennerley; 
1906. 



[66] 



Edgar S altu s 



from Flaubert, a detail which Tissot followed in 
his painting of Salome. . . . From the later chap- 
ters it is possible that Paul Heyse filched an idea. 
The turning point of his drama, Maria von Mag- 
dala, hinges on Judas's love for Mary and his 
jealousy of Jesus. Saltus develops exactly this 
situation. Heyse's play appeared in 1899, eight 
years after Saltus's novel. However, Saltus has 
protested to me that it is an idea that might have 
occurred to any one. " I put it in," he added, " to 
make the action more nervous." The book begins 
well with a description of Herod's court and Rome 
in Judea, but as a whole it is unsatisfactory. 
Once the plot develops Saltus seems to lose in- 
terest. He lazily quotes whole scenes from the 
Bible (George Moore very cleverly avoided this 
pitfall in "The Brook Kerith "). The early 
chapters suggest " Imperial Purple," which ap- 
peared a year later and upon which he may well 
have been at work at this time. There is a fore- 
shadowing, too, of " The Lords of the Ghost- 
land " in a very amusing and slightly cynical pas- 
sage in which Mary as a child listens to Sephorah 
the sorceress tell legends and myths of Assyria and 
Egypt. Mary interrupts with " Why you mean 
Moses ! You mean Noah ! " just as a child of to- 
day, if confronted with the situations in the Greek 
[67] 



Edgar Saltus 



dramas would attribute them to Bayard Veiller or 
Eugene Walter. Saltus is too much of a scholar 
to find much novelty in Christianity. But aside 
from this passage cynicism is lacking from this 
book, a quality which makes another story on the 
same theme, " Le Procurateur de Judee," one of 
the greatest short stories in any language. 
Mary's sins are quickly passed over and we come 
almost immediately to her conversion. Herod 
Antipas, with his " fan-shaped beard " and vacil- 
lating Pilate, quite comparable to a modern poli- 
tician, are the most human and best-realized char- 
acters in a book which should have been greater 
than it is. " Mary Magdalen " is dedicated to 
Henry James. 

" The facts in the Curious Case of H. Hyrtl, 
esq." ! is a slight yarn in the mellow Stevenson 
manner, with a kindly old gentleman as the mes- 
senger of the supernatural who provides the 
wherewithal for a marriage between an impover- 
ished artist, who is painting Heliogabolus's feast 
of roses, and his sweet young thing. Quite a 
departure this from the usual Saltus manner; 
nevertheless there are two deaths, one by shock, 
the other in a railway accident. The plot de- 

iR F. Collier; 1892; "Written especially for 'Once a 
Week Library.' " 

[68] 



wmrnhmmmmmmm 



Edgar S altu s 



pends on as many impossible entrances and exits 
as a Palais Royal farce and the reader is asked 
to believe in many coincidences. The book is dedi- 
cated to Lorillard Ronalds who, the author ex- 
plains in a few French phrases, asked him to write 
something " de tres pure et de tres chaste, pour une 
jeunesse, sans doute." He adds that the story is 
a rewriting of a tale which had appeared twenty 
years earlier. 

" Imperial Purple " * marks the high-tide of 
Saltus's peculiar genius. The emperors of im- 
perial decadent Rome are led by the chains of art 
behind the chariot wheels of the poet: Julius 
Caesar, whom Cato called " that woman," Augus- 
tus, Tiberius, Caligula, the wicked Agrippina, for 
whom Agnes Repplier named her cat, Claudius, 
Nero, Hadrian, Vespasian, down to the incred- 
ible Heliogabolus. Saltus, who has given us many 
vivid details concerning the lives of his predeces- 
sors, seemingly falters at this dread name, but only 
seemingly. More can be found about this ex- 
traordinary and perverse emperor in Lombard's 
" L'Agonie " and in Franz Blei's " The Powder 
Puff," but, although Saltus is brief, he evokes an 
atmosphere and a picture in a few short para- 

i Morrill, Higgins and Co;. 1893. Reprinted by Mitchell 
Kennerley; 1906. 



[69] 



Edgar Saltu s 



graphs. The sheer lyric quality of this book has 
remained unsurpassed by this author. Indeed it is 
rare in all literature. Page after page that Wal- 
ter Pater, Oscar Wilde, or J. K. Huysmans might 
have been glad to sign might be set before you. 
The man writes with invention, with sap, with 
urge. Our eyes are not clogged with foot-notes 
and references. It is plain that our author has 
delved in the " Scriptores Historian Augustae," 
that he has. read Lampridius, Suetonius, and the 
others, but he does not strive to make us aware of 
it. The historical form has at last found a poet 
to render it supportable. Blood runs across the 
pages ; gore and booty are the principal themes ; 
and yet Beauty struts supreme through the hor- 
ror. The author's sympathy is his password, a 
sympathy which he occasionally exposes, for he 
is not above pinning his heart to his sleeve, as, for 
example, when he says, " In spite of Augustus's 
boast, the city was not by any means of marble. 
It was filled with crooked little streets, with the 
atrocities of the Tarquins, with houses unsightly 
and perilous, with the moss and dust of ages; it 
compared with Alexandria as London compares 
with Paris ; it had a splendour of its own, but a 
splendour that could be heightened." Here is a 
picture of squalid Rome : " In the subura, where 
[70] 






Edgar Saltus 



at night women sat in high chairs, ogling the 
passer with painted eyes, there was still plenty of 
brick; tall tenements, soiled linen, the odor of 
Whitechapel and St. Giles. The streets were noisy 
with match-pedlars, with vendors of cake and 
tripe and coke ; there were touts there too, altars 
to unimportant divinities, lying Jews who dealt in 
old clothes, in obscene pictures and unmentionable 
wares ; at the crossings there were thimbleriggers, 
clowns and jugglers, who made glass balls appear 
and disappear surprisingly ; there were doorways 
decorated with curious invitations, gossipy barber 
shops, where, through the liberality of politicians, 
the scum of a great city was shaved, curled and 
painted free ; and there were public houses, where 
vagabond slaves and sexless priests drank the 
mulled wine of Crete, supped on the flesh of beasts 
slaughtered in the arena, or watched the Syrian 
women twist to the click of castanets." The ac- 
count of the arena under Nero should not be 
missed, but it is too long to quote here. The 
book, which we give three stars, is dedicated to 
Edwin Albert Schroeder. Fortunately, of all Sal- 
tus's works, it is the most readily procurable. 

" Imperial Purple " has had a curious history. 
Belford, Clarke and Co., who hid their identity 
behind the " Morrill, Higgins " imprint, failed 
[71] 



Edgar Saltus 



shortly after they had issued the book. " Pres- 
ently," Mr. Saltus writes me, " a Chicago biblio- 
filou brought it out as the work of some one else 
and called it ' The Sins of Nero,' " Meanwhile 
Greening published it in London and finally 
Mitchell Kennerley reprinted it in New York. 
In 1911 Macmillan in London brought out " The 
Amazing Emperor Heliogabolus " by the Rev- 
erend John Stuart Hay of Oxford. In the pref- 
ace to this book I found the following : " I have 
also the permission of Mr. E. E. Saltus of Har- 
vard University (sic) to quote his vivid and beau- 
tiful studies on the Roman Empire and her cus- 
toms. I am also deeply indebted to Mr. Walter 
Pater, Mr. J. A. Symonds, and Mr. Saltus for 
many a towrnwre de phrase and picturesque render- 
ing of Tacitus, Suetonious, Lampridius, and the 
rest." The Reverend Doctor certainly helped 
himself to " Imperial Purple." Words, sentences, 
nay whole paragraphs appear without the for- 
mality of quotation marks, without any indication, 
indeed, save these lines in the preface, that they 
are not part of the Doctor's own imagination, 
unless one compares them with the style in which 
the rest of the book is written. " In one in- 
stance," Mr. Saltus writes me, " he gave a para- 
graph of mine as his own. Later on he added, 
[72] 



Edgar S al tu s 



i as we have already said ' and repeated the para- 
graph. The plural struck me as singular." 

" Madam Sapphira " x is a vivid study in un- 
chastened womanhood. We see but little of the 
lady in the 251 pages of this " Fifth Avenue 
Story " ; her character is exposed to us through 
the experiences of her poor fool husband, who 
colloquially would be called a simp, by denizens of 
the Low World a boob. He redeems himself to 
some extent by sending Madam Sapphira a belated 
bouquet of cyanide of potassium. On the whole, 
though characters and phrases in his work might 
be brought forward to prove the contrary, Mr. 
Saltus obviously has a low opinion of women and 
thinks that men do better without them. The 
greater part of the time he appears to agree with 
Posthumus : 

" Could I find out 

The woman's part in me ! For there's no motion 
That tends to vice in man but I affirm 
It is the woman's part ; be it lying, note it 
The woman's ; flattering, hers ; deceiving, hers ; 
Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers ; revenges, hers ; 
Ambitions, covetings, changes of prides, disdain, 
Nice longings, slanders, mutability, 
iF. Tennyson Neely; 1893. 

[73] 



Edgar Saltus 



All faults that may be named, nay that hell knows, 

Why, hers, in part or all ; but rather, all ; 

For even to vice 

They are not constant, but are changing still 

One vice of a minute old for one 

Not half so old as that. I'll write against them, 

Detest them, curse them. — Yet 'tis greater skill 

In a true hate, to pray they have their will : 

The very devils cannot plague them better." 

" Enthralled, a story of international life set- 
ting forth the curious circumstances concerning 
Lord Cloden and Oswald Quain " : 1 a mad opus 
this, an insane phantasmagoria of crime, avarice, 
and murder. For the second time in this author's 
novels incest plays a role. This time it is real. 
Quain is indeed the half-brother of the lady who 
desires to marry him. He is as vile and virulent 
a villain as any who stalks through the pages of 
Ann Ker, Eliza Bromley, or Mrs. Radcliffe. A 
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde motive is sounded. An 
ugly man comes back from London a handsome 
fellow after visits to a certain doctor who re- 
arranges the lines of his face. The transfor- 
mation is effected every day now (some of our 
prominent actresses are said to have benefited by 

i Tudor Press; 1894. 

[74] 



Edgar S al tu s 



this operation), but in 1894 the mechanism of 
the trick must have been appallingly creaky. 
This story, indeed, borders on the burlesque and 
has almost as much claim to the title as " The 
Green Carnation." Was the author laughing at 
the Eighteen Nineties? The period is subtly 
evoked in one detail, constantly reiterated in Sal- 
tus's early books : ladies and gentlemen when they 
leave a room " push aside the portieres." Some- 
times the " rings jingle." He has in most in- 
stances mercifully spared us further descriptions 
of the interiors of New York houses at this 
epoch. ... At a dinner party one of the guests 
refers to Howells as the " foremost novelist who is 
never read." The book is dedicated to " Cheru- 
bina, dulcissime rerwm." Saltus returned to the 
central theme of " Enthralled " in a story called 
" The Impostor," printed in " Ainslee's " for May, 
1917. 

" When Dreams Come True " * again brings us 
in touch with Tancred Ennever, the stupid hero 
of " The Transient Guest." In the meantime he 
has become an almost intolerable prig. It is 
probable that Saltus meant more by this fable 
than he has let appear. The roar of the waves 
on the coast of Lesbos is distinctly audible for a 

i The Transatlantic Publishing Co. ; 1895. 

[75] 



Edgar S altu s 



time and the denoument seems to belong to quite 
another story. . . . Ennever has turned author. 
We are informed that he has completed studies on 
Huysmans and Leconte de Lisle; he is also en- 
gaged on a " Historia Amoris." There is an in- 
teresting passage relating to the names of great 
writers. Alphabet Jones assures us that they are 
always " in two syllables with the accent on the 
first. Oyez: Homer, Sappho, Horace, Dante, 
Petrarch, Ronsard, Shakespeare, Hugo, Swin- 
burne . . . Balzac, Flaubert, Huysmans, Mich- 
elet, Renan." The reader is permitted to 
add . . . " Saltus " ! 

" Purple and Fine Women " 1 is a misnamed 
book. It should be called " Philosophic Fables." 
The first two stories are French in form. Paul 
Bourget himself is the hero of one of them ! In 
" The Princess of the Sun " we are offered a new 
and fantastic version of the Coppelia story. 
" The Dear Departed " finds Saltus in a mur- 
derous amorous mood again. In " The Princess 
of the Golden Isles " a new poison is introduced, 
muscarine. Alchemy furnishes the theme for one 
tale; the protagonist seeks an alcahest, a human 
victim for his crucible. We are left in doubt as 
to whether he chooses his wife, who wears a dia- 
lAinslee; 1903. 

[76] 



Edgar Sal tu s 



mond set in one of her teeth, or a gorilla. There 
are dramas of dual personality and of death. 
Metaphysics and spiritualism rise dimly out of the 
charm of this book. There is a duchess who mews 
like a cat and somewhere we are assured that 
Perche non posso odiarte from La Sonnambula is 
the most beautiful aria in the Italian repertory. 
Here is a true and soul-revealing epigram: 
" The best way to master a subject of which you 
are ignorant is to write it up." Certainly not 
Saltus at his best, this opm, but far from his 
worst. 

" The Perfume of Eros " x is frenzied fiction 
again; amnesia, drunkenness, white slavery, sex, 
are its mingled themes. There is a pretty picture, 
recognizable in any smart community, of a witty 
woman of fashion, and a full-length portrait of a 
bounder. " The Yellow Fay," Saltus's cliche for 
the Demon Rum, was the original title of this 
" Fifth Avenue Incident." Romance and Realism 
consort lovingly together in its pages. There is 
an unforgetable passage descriptive of a young 
man ridding himself of his mistress. He inter- 
rupts his flow of explanation to hand her a card 
case, which she promptly throws out of the win- 
dow. 

i A. Wessels Co.; 1905. 

[77] 



Edgar S al tu s 



" ' That is an agreeable way of getting rid of 
twelve thousand dollars,' he remarked. 

" Yet, however lightly he affected to speak, the 
action annoyed him. Like all men of large means 
he was close. It seemed to him beastly to lose 
such a sum. He got up, went to the window and 
looked down. He could not see the case and he 
much wanted to go and look for it. But that for 
the moment Marie prevented." 

" The Pomps of Satan " * is replete with grace 
and graciousness, and full of charm, a quality more 
valuable to its possessor than juvenility, our au- 
thor tells us in a chapter concerning the lost elixir 
of youth. Neither form nor matter assume pon- 
derous shape in this volume, which in the quality 
of its contents reminds one faintly of Franz Blei's 
lady's breviary, " The Powder Puff," but Saltus's 
book is the more ingratiating of the two. Satan's 
pomps are varied; the author exposes his whims, 
his ideas, images the past, forecasts the future, de- 
plores the present. There is a chapter on cook- 
ing and we learn that Saltus does not care for 
food prepared in the German style . . . nor yet 
in the American. He forbids us champagne: 
" Champagne is not a wine. It is a beverage, 
lighter indeed than brandy and soda, but, like 
i Mitchell Kennerley; 1906. 

[78] 



Edgar Saltus 



cologne, fit only for demi-reps. " But he seems 
untrue to himself in an essay condemning the use 
of perfumes. His own books are heavily scented. 
With the rare prescience and clairvoyance of an 
artist he includes the German Kaiser in a chapter 
on hyenas (in 1906!); therein stalk the blood- 
stained shadows of Caligula, Caracalla, Atilla, 
Tamerlane, Cesare Borgia, Philip II, and Ivan 
the Terrible. The paragraph is worth quoting: 
" Power consists in having a million bayonets be- 
hind you. Its diffusion is not general. But there 
are people who possess it. For one, the German 
Kaiser. Not long since somebody or other diag- 
nosed in him the habitual criminal. We doubt 
that he is that. But we suspect that, were it not 
for the press, he would show more of primitive man 
than he has thus far thought judicious." Has 
Mme. de Thebes done better? Saltus also fore- 
saw Gertrude Stein. Peering into the future he 
wrote : " When that day comes the models of lit- 
erary excellence will not be the long and windy 
sentences of accredited bores, but ample brevities, 
such as the ' N ' on Napoleon's tomb, in which, in 
less than a syllable, an epoch, and the glory of it, 
is resumed." Saltus forsakes his previous choice 
from Bellini and installs Tu che a Dio as his fa- 
vourite Italian opera air. Here is another flash 
[79] 



Edgar Saltus 



of self-revealment : " Byzance is rumoured to 
have been the sewer of every sin, yet such was its 
beauty that it is the canker of our heart we could 
not have lived there." Always this turning to the 
far past, this delving in rosetta stones and palimp- 
sests, this preoccupation with the sights and sins 
of the ancient gods and kings. A chapter on 
poisons, another on Gille de Retz, which probably 
owes something to " La Bas," betray this prefer- 
ence. He playfully suggests that the Academy of 
Arts and Letters be filled up with young nobodies : 
" They have, indeed, done nothing yet. But 
therein is their charm. An academy composed of 
young people who have done nothing yet would be 
more alluring than one made up of fossils who are 
unable to do anything more." Herein are con- 
tained enough aphorisms and epigrams to make 
up a new book of Solomonic wisdom. Hardly as 
evenly inspired as " Imperial Purple," " The 
Pomps of Satan " is more dashing and more 
varied. It is also more tired. 

" Vanity Square " * in Stella Sixmuth boasts 
such a " vampire " as even Theda Bara is seldom 
called upon to portray. Not until the final chap- 
ters of this mystery story do we discover that 
this lady has been poisoning a rich man's wife, 

i J. B. Lippincott Co.; 1906. 

[80] 



mmu 



Edgar S al tu s 



with an eye on the rich man's heart and hand. 
Orsere is this slow and subtle poison which leaves 
no subsequent trace. She is thwarted but in a 
subsequent attempt she is successful. Robert 
Hichens has used this theme in " Bella Donna." 
There is a suicide by pistol. An exciting story 
but little else, this book contains fewer references 
to the gods and the caesars than is usual with 
Saltus. To compensate there are long discussions 
about phobias, dual personalities (a girl with six 
is described) and theories about future existence. 
Vanity Square, we are told, is bounded by Central 
Park, Madison Avenue, Seventy-second Street and 
the Plaza. 

It will be remembered that Tancred Ennever 
was at work on " Historia Amoris " * in 1895, 
which would seem to indicate that Saltus had begun 
to collect material for it himself at that time. 
The title is a literal description of the contents of 
the book: it is a history of love. Such a work 
might have been made purely anecdotal or scien- 
tific, but Saltus's purpose has been at once more 
serious and more graceful, to show how the love 
currents flowed through the centuries, to show what 
effect period life had on love and what effect love 
had on period life. Beginning with Babylon and 
i Mitchell Kennerley; 1907. 

[81] 



Edgar Saltus 



passing on through the " Song of Songs " we meet 
Helen of Troy, Scheherazade (though but briefly), 
Sappho (to whom an entire chapter is devoted), 
Cleopatra (whom Heine called " cette reme entre- 
tenue"), Mary Magdalen, Heloise. . . . The 
Courts of Love are described and deductions are 
drawn as to the effect of the Renaissance on the 
Gay Science. " Historia Amoris " is concluded by 
a Schopenhauerian essay on " The Law of Attrac- 
tion." Cicisbeism is not treated in extenso, as it 
should be, and I also missed the fragrant name 
of Sophie Arnould. Readers of " Love and Lore," 
" The Pomps of Satan," " Imperial Purple," and 
" The Lords of the Ghostland " will find much of 
their material adjusted to the purposes of this 
History of Love, which, nevertheless, no one inter- 
ested in Saltus can afford to miss. 

In " The Lords of the Ghostland, a history of 
the ideal," * Saltus returns to the theme of " The 
Anatomy of Negation." The newer work is both 
more cynical and more charming. It is, of course, 
a history and a comparison of religions. With 
Reinach Saltus believes that Christianity owes 
much to its ancestors. Brahma, Ormuzd, Amon- 
Ra, Bel-Marduk, Jehovah, Zeus, Jupiter, and 
many lesser deities parade before us in defile, 
i Mitchell Kennerley; 1907, 

[82] 






Edgar S al tu s 



Prejudice, intolerance, tolerance even are lacking 
from this book, as they were from " Imperial 
Purple." "The Lords of the Ghostland " is 
neither reverent nor irreverent, it is unreverent. 
Mr. Saltus finds joy in writing about the gods, the 
joy of a poet, and if his chief est pleasure is to 
extol the gods of Greece that is only what might 
be expected of this truly pagan spirit. Students 
of comparative theology can learn much from 
these pages, but they will learn it unwittingly, for 
the poet supersedes the teacher. Saltus is never 
professorial. The scientific spirit is never to the 
fore; no marshalling of dull facts for their own 
sakes. Nevertheless I suspect that the book con- 
tains more absorbing information than any similar 
volume on the subject. With a fascinating and 
guileful style this divine devil of an author leads us 
on to the spot where he can point out to us that 
the only original feature of Christianity is the 
crucifixion, and even that is foreshadowed in 
Hindoo legend, in which Krishna dies, nailed by 
arrows to a tree. This book should be required 
reading for the first class in isogogics. 

Most of the scenes of " Daughters of the 
Rich " 1 are laid in Paris. The plot hinges on mis- 
taken identity and the whole is a very ingenious 

i Mitchell Kennerley; 1909. 

[83] 



Edgar S al tu s 



detective story. The book begins rather than 
ends with a murder, but that is because the tale 
is told backward. Through lies, deceit, and 
treachery the woman in the case, one Sallie Mala- 
koff, betrays the hero into marriage with her. 
When he discovers her perfidy he cheerfully cuts 
her throat from ear to ear and goes to join the 
lady from whom he has been estranged. She re- 
ceives him with open arms and suggests wedding 
bells. No woman, she asserts, could resist a man 
who has killed another woman for her sake. This 
is decidedly a Roman point of view ! Some of the 
action takes place in a house on the Avenue Mala- 
koff, which must have been near the hotel of the 
Princesse de Sagan and the apartment occupied 
by Miss Mary Garden. ... A fat manufacturer's 
wife confronts the proposal of a mercenary duke 
with an epic rejoinder: "Pay a man a million 
dollars to sleep with my daughter ! Never ! " . . . 
Again Saltus demonstrates how completely he is 
master of the story-telling gift, how surely he pos- 
sesses the power to compel breathless attention. 

" The Monster " 1 is fiction, incredible, insane 

fiction. The monster is incest, in this instance 

incest e manque because it doesn't come off. On 

the eve of a runaway marriage Leilah Ogsten is 

i Pulitzer Publishing Co.; 1912. 

[84] 




Edgar Saltus 



informed by her father that her intended husband 
is her own brother (he inculpates her mother in the 
scandal). Leilah disappears and to put barriers 
between her and the man she loves becomes the 
bride of another. Verplank pursues. There are 
two fabulous duels and a scene in which our hero 
is mangled by dogs. The stage (for we are always 
in some extravagant theatre) is frequently set in 
Paris and the familiar scenes of the capital are in 
turn exposed to our view. It is all mad, full of 
purple patches and crimson splotches and yet, once 
opened, it is impossible to lay the book down 
until it is completed. From this novel Mr. Saltus 
fashioned his only play, The Gates of Life, which 
he sent to Charles Frohman and which Mr. Froh- 
man returned. The piece has neither been pro- 
duced nor published. 

Last year (1917) the Brothers of the Book in 
Chicago published privately an extremely limited 
edition (474 copies) of a book by Edgar Saltus 
entitled, " Oscar Wilde : An Idler's Impression," 
which contains only twenty-six pages, but those 
twenty-six pages are very beautiful. They evoke 
a spirit from the dead. Indeed, I doubt if even 
Saltus has done better than his description of a 
strange occurrence in a Regent Street Restaurant 
on a certain night when he was supping with 
[85] 



Edgar Saltus 



Wilde and Wilde was reading Salome to him: 
" apropos of nothing, or rather with what to me at 
the time was curious irrelevance, Oscar, while toss- 
ing off glass after glass of liquor, spoke of Pheme, 
a goddess rare even in mythology, who after ap- 
pearing twice in Homer, flashed through a verse of 
Hesiod and vanished behind a page of Herodotus. 
In telling of her, suddenly his eyes lifted, his 
mouth contracted, a spasm of pain — or was it 
dread ? — had gripped him. A moment only. 
His face relaxed. It had gone. 

" I have since wondered, could he have evoked 
the goddess then? For Pheme typified what mod- 
ern occultism terms the impact — the premonition 
that surges and warns. It was Wilde's fate to die 
three times — to die in the dock, to die in prison, 
to die all along the boulevards of Paris. Often 
since I have wondered could the goddess have been 
lifting, however slightly, some fringe of the crim- 
son curtain, behind which, in all its horror, his 
destiny crouched. If so, he braved it. 

" I had looked away. I looked again. Before 
me was a fat pauper, florid and over-dressed, who, 
in the voice of an immortal, was reading the fan- 
tasies of the damned. In his hand was a manu- 
script, and we were supping on Salome." 

Edgar Saltus began with Balzac in 1884 and 
[86] 



wMmmmwmmmmm 



Edgar Saltu s 



he has reached Oscar Wilde in 1917. His other 
literary essays, on Gautier and Merimee in " Tales 
Before Supper," on Barbey d'Aurevilly in " The 
Story Without a Name," and on Victor Hugo in 
« The Forum " (June, 1912,) all display the finest 
qualities of his genius. Pervaded with his rare 
charm they are clairvoyant and illuminating, more 
than that arresting. They should be brought to- 
gether in one volume, especially as they are at 
present absolutely inaccessible, terrifyingly so, 
every one of them. And if they are to be thus 
collected may we not hope for one or two new es- 
says with, say, for subjects, Flaubert and Huys- 
mans ? 

It is, you may perceive, as an essayist, a his- 
torian, an amateur philosopher that Saltus ex- 
cels, but his fiction should not be under-rated on 
that account. His novels indeed are half essays, 
just as his essays are half novels. Even the worst 
of them contains charming pages, delightful and 
unexpected interruptions. His series of fables 
suggests a vast Comedie Inhumaine but this state- 
ment must not be regarded as dispraise: it is 
merely description. You will find something of 
the same quality in the work of Edgar Allan Poe, 
but Saltus has more grace and charm than Poe, 
if less intensity. After one dip into realism 
[87] 



Edgar Sal tu s 



(" Mr. Incoul's Misadventure ") Saltus became an 
incorrigible romantic. All his characters are the 
inventions of an errant fancy ; scarcely one of 
them suggests a human being, but they are none 
the less creations of art. This, perhaps, was a 
daring procedure in an era devoted to the exploi- 
tation in fiction of the facts of hearth and home. 
. . . After all, however, his way may be the better 
way. Personally I may say that my passion for 
realism is on the wane. 

In these strange tales we pass through the 
familiar haunts of metropolitan life, but the crea- 
tures are amazingly unfamiliar. They have horns 
and hoofs, halos and wings, or fins and tails. An 
esoteric band of fabulous monsters these: harpies 
and vampires take tea at Sherry's ; succubi and 
incubbi are observed buying opal rings at Tif- 
fany's ; fairies, angels, dwarfs, and elves, bearing 
branches of asphodel, trip lightly down Waverly 
Place; peris, amshaspahands, assir, izeds, and gob- 
lins sleep at the Brevoort ; seraphim and cheru- 
bim decorate drawing rooms on Irving Place ; grif- 
fons, chimeras, and sphynxes take courses in phi- 
losophy at Harvard; willis and sylphs sing airs 
from Lucia di hammer mo or and he Nozze di 
Figaro; naiads and mermaids embark on the 
Cunard Line; centaurs and amazons drive in the 
[88] 



i 



I 



Edgar S altus 



Florentine Cascine; kobolds, gnomes, and trolls 
stab, shoot, and poison one another; and a satyr 
meets the martichoras in Gramercy Park. No 
such pictures of monstrous, diverting, sensuous 
existence can be found elsewhere save in the paint- 
ings of Arnold Bocklin, Franz von Stuck, and 
above all those of Gustave Moreau. If he had 
done nothing else Edgar Saltus should be famous 
for having given New York a mythology of its 
own! 



January 12, 1918. 



[89] 



The New Art of the Singer 

It's the law of life that nothing new can come into 
the world without pain." 

Karen Borneman. 



, 



I 



The New Art of the Singer 



THE art of vocalization is retarding the 
progress of the modern music drama. 
That is the simple fact although, doubtless, 
you are as accustomed as I am to hearing it ex- 
pressed a rebours. How many times have we read 
that the art of singing is in its decadence, that 
soon there would not be one artist left fitted to 
deliver vocal music in public. The Earl of Mount 
Edgcumbe wrote something of the sort in 1825 
for he found the great Catalani but a sorry trav- 
esty of his early favourites, Pacchierotti and 
Banti. I protest against this misconception. 
Any one who asserts that there are laws which 
govern singing, physical, scientific laws, must pay 
court to other ears than mine. I have heard this 
same man for twenty years shouting in the market 
place that a piece without action was not a play 
(usually the drama he referred to had more real 
action than that which decorates the progress of 
Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model), that a com- 
position without melody (meaning something by 
Richard Wagner, Robert Franz, or even Edvard 
Grieg) was not music, that verse without rhyme 
was not poetry. This same type of brilliant mind 
will go on to aver (forgetting the Scot) that men 
[ 93 ] 



New Art of the Singer 

who wear skirts are not men, (forgetting the Span- 
iards) that women who smoke cigars are not 
women, and to settle numberless other matters in 
so silly a manner that a ten year old, half-witted 
school boy, after three minutes light thinking, 
could be depended upon to do better. 

The rules for the art of singing, laid down in 
the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, have 
become obsolete. How could it be otherwise? 
They were contrived to fit a certain style of com- 
position. We have but the briefest knowledge, in- 
deed, of how people sang before 1700, although 
records exist praising the performances of Archilei 
and others. If a different standard for the criti- 
cism of vocalization existed before 1600 there is 
no reason why there should not after 1917. As 
a matter of fact, maugre much authoritative opin- 
ion to the contrary, a different standard does ex- 
ist. In certain respects the new standard is taken 
for granted. We do not, for example, expect to 
hear male sopranos at the opera. The Earl of 
Mount Edgcumbe admired this artificial form of 
voice almost to the exclusion of all others. His 
favourite singer, indeed, Pacchierotti, was a male 
soprano. But other breaks have been made with 
tradition, breaks which are not yet taken for 
granted. When you find that all but one or two 
[94] 



New Art of the Singer 

of the singers in every opera house in the world 
are ignoring the rules in some respect or other you 
may be certain, in spite of the protests of the 
professors, that the rules are dead. Their excuse 
has disappeared and they remain only as silly 
commandments made to fit an old religion. A 
singer in Handel's day was accustomed to stand 
in one spot on the stage and sing; nothing else 
was required of him. He was not asked to walk 
about or to act; even expression in his singing 
was limited to pathos. The singers of this period, 
Nicolini, Senesino, Cuzzoni, Faustina, Caffarelli, 
Farinelli, Carestini, Gizziello, and Pacchierotti, 
devoted their study years to preparing their voices 
for the display of a certain definite kind of florid 
music. They had nothing else to learn. As a 
consequence they were expected to be particularly 
efficient. Porpora, Caffarelli's teacher, is said to 
have spent six years on his pupil before he sent 
him forth to be w the greatest singer in the world." 
Contemporary critics appear to have been highly 
pleased with the result but there is some excuse 
for H. T. Finck's impatience, expressed in " Songs 
and Song Writers " : " The favourites of the 
eighteenth-century Italian audiences were arti- 
ficial male sopranos, like Farinelli, who was fran- 
tically applauded for such circus tricks as beating 
[ 95 ] 



New Art of the Singer 

a trumpeter in holding on to a note, or racing 
with an orchestra and getting ahead of it ; or 
Caffarelli, who entertained his audiences by sing- 
ing, m one breath, a chromatic chain of trills up 
and down two octaves. Caffarelli was a pupil of 
the famous vocal teacher Porpora, who wrote 
operas consisting chiefly of monotonous succes- 
sions of florid arias resembling the music that is 
now written for flutes and violins." All very well 
for the day, no doubt, but could Cuzzoni sing 
Isolde? Could Faustina sing Melisande? And 
what modern parts would be allotted to the Julian 
Eltinges of the Eighteenth Century? 

When composers began to set dramatic texts 
to music trouble immediately appeared at the door. 
For example, the contemporaries of Sophie 
Arnould, the " creator " of Iphigenie en Aulide, 
are agreed that she was greater as an actress than 
she was as a singer. David Garrick, indeed, pro- 
nounced her a finer actress than Clairon. From 
that day to this there has been a continual tri- 
angular conflict between critic, composer, and 
singer, which up to date, it must be admitted, has 
been won by the academic pundits, for, although 
the singer has struggled, she has generally bent 
under the blows of the critical knout, thereby 
holding the lyric drama more or less in the state 
[96] 



New Art of the Singer 

it was in a hundred years ago (every critic and 
almost every composer will tell you that any mod- 
ern opera can be sung according to the laws of 
bel canto and enough singers exist, unfortunately, 
to justify this assertion) save that the music is 
not so well sung, according to the old standards, 
as it was then. No singer has had quite the cour- 
age to entirely defy tradition, to refuse to study 
with a teacher, to embody her own natural ideas 
in the performance of music, to found a new school 
. . . but there have been many rebells. 

The operas of Mozart, Bellini, Donizetti, and 
Rossini, as a whole, do not demand great histrionic 
exertion from their interpreters and for a time 
singers trained in the old Handelian tradition met 
every requirement of these composers and their 
audiences. If more action was demanded than 
in Handel's day the newer music, in compensation, 
was easier to sing. But even early in the Nine- 
teenth Century we observe that those artists who 
strove to be actors as well as singers lost some- 
thing in vocal facility (really they were pushing 
on to the new technique). I need only speak of 
Ronconi and Mme. Pasta. The lady was ad- 
mittedly the greatest lyric artist of her day al- 
though it is recorded that her slips from true in- 
tonation were frequent. When she could no 
[97] 



New Art of the Singer 

longer command a steady tone the beaux testes 
of her art and her authoritative style caused 
Pauline Viardot, who was hearing her then for 
the first time, to burst into tears. Ronconi's 
voice, according to Chorley, barely exceeded an 
octave ; it was weak and habitually out of tune. 
This baritone was not gifted with vocal agility 
and he was monotonous in his use of ornament. 
Nevertheless this same Chorley admits that Ron- 
coni afforded him more pleasure in the theatre 
than almost any other singer he ever heard! If 
this critic did not rise to the occasion here and 
point the way to the future in another place he 
had a faint glimmering of the coming revolution: 
" There might, there should be yet, a new Medea 
as an opera. Nothing can be grander, more an- 
tique, more Greek, than Cherubini's setting of the 
' grand fiendish part ' (to quote the words of 
Mrs. Siddons on Lady Macbeth). But, as music, 
it becomes simply impossible to be executed, so 
frightful is the strain on the energies of her who 
is to present the heroine. Compared with this 
character, Beethoven's Leonora, Weber's Euryan- 
the, are only so much child's play." This is 
topsy-turvy reasoning, of course, but at the same 
time it is suggestive. 

The modern orchestra dug a deeper breach 
[98] 



' 



New Art of the Singer 

between the two schools. Wagner called upon 
the singer to express powerful emotion, passionate 
feeling, over a great body of sound, nay, in many 
instances, agamst a great body of sound. (It is 
significant that Wagner himself admitted that it 
was a singer [Madame Schroeder-Devrient] who 
revealed to him the possibilities of dramatic sing- 
ing. He boasted that he was the only one to 
learn the lesson. " She was the first artist," 
writes H. T. Finck, " who fully revealed the fact 
that in a dramatic opera there may be situations 
where characteristic singing is of more importance 
than beautiful singing.") It is small occasion 
for wonder that singers began to bark. Indeed 
they nearly expired under the strain of trying 
successfully to mingle Porpora and passion. Ac- 
cording to W. F. Apthorp, Max Alvary once said 
that, considering the emotional intensity of music 
and situations, the constant co-operation of the 
surging orchestra, and, most of all, the uncon- 
querable feeling of the reality of it all, it was a 
wonder that singing actors did not go stark mad, 
before the very faces of the audience, in parts like 
Tristan or Siegfried. . . . The critics, however, 
were inexorable ; they stood by their guns. There 
was but one way to sing the new music and that 
was the way of Bernacchi and Pistocchi. In 
[99] 



New Art of the Singer 

time, by dint of persevering, talking night and 
day, writing day and night, they convinced the 
singer. The music drama developed but the singer 
was held in his place. Some artists, great geniuses, 
of course, made the compromise successfully. . . . 
Jean de Reszke, for example, and Lilli Lehmann, 
who said to H. E. Krehbiel (" Chapters of 
Opera ") : " It is easier to sing all three Briinn- 
hildes than one Norma. You are so carried away 
by the dramatic emotion, the action, and the scene, 
that you do not have to think how to sing the 
words. That comes of itself " . . . but they 
made the further progress of the composer more 
difficult thereby ; music remained merely pretty. 
The successors of these supple singers even learned 
to sing Richard Strauss with broad cantilena ef- 
fects. As for Puccini ! At a performance of 
Madama Butterfly & Japanese once asked why 
the singers were producing those nice round tones 
in moments of passion ; why not ugly sounds ? 

Will any composer arise with the courage to 
write an opera which cannot be sung? Stravinsky 
almost did this in The Nightingale but the break 
must be more complete. Think of the range of 
sounds made by the Japanese, the gipsy, the Chi- 
nese, the Spanish folk-singers. The newest com- 
poser may ask for shrieks, squeaks, groans, 
[100] 



'./ 






New Art of the Singer 

screams, a thousand delicate shades of guttural 
and falsetto vocal tones from his interpreters. 
Why should the gamut of expression on our opera 
stage be so much more limited than it is in our 
music halls? Why should the Hottentots be able 
to make so many delightful noises that we are in- 
capable of producing? Composers up to date 
have taken into account a singer's apparent in- 
ability to bridge difficult intervals. It is only by 
ignoring all such limitations that the new music 
will definitely emerge, the new art of the singer 
be born. What marvellous effects might be 
achieved by skipping from octave to octave in 
the human voice ! When will the obfusc pundits 
stop shouting for what Avery Hopwood calls 
" ascending and descending tetrarchs ! " 

But, some one will argue, with the passing of 
bel canto what will become of the operas of Mozart, 
Bellini, Rossini, and Donizetti? Who will sing 
them? Fear not, lover of the golden age of song, 
bel canto is not passing as swiftly as that. Sing- 
ers will continue to be born into this world who 
are able to cope with the floridity of this music, for 
they are born, not made. Amelita Galli-Curci 
will have her successors, just as Adelina Patti 
had hers. Singers of this kind begin to sing 
naturally in their infancy and they continue to 
[101] 



New Art of the Singer 

sing, just sing. . . . One touch of drama or emo- 
tion and their voices disappear. Remember Nel- 
lie Melba's sad experience with Siegfried. The 
great Mario had scarcely studied singing (one 
authority says that he had taken a few lessons 
of Meyerbeer!) when he made his debut in Robert, 
le Diable and there is no evidence that he studied 
very much afterwards. Melba, herself, spent less 
than a year with Mme. Marchesi in preparation 
for her opera career. Mme. Galli-Curci asserts 
that she has had very little to do with professors 
and I do not think Mme. Tetrazzini passed her 
youth in mastering vocalizzi. As a matter of fact 
she studied singing only six months. Adelina 
Patti told Dr. Hanslick that she had sung Una 
voce poco fa at the age of seven with the same 
embellishments which she used later when she ap- 
peared in the opera in which the air occurs. No, 
these singers are freaks of nature like tortoise- 
shell cats and like those rare felines they are 
usually females of late, although such singers as 
Battistini and Bonci remind us that men once sang 
with as much agility as women. But when this 
type of singer finally becomes extinct naturally 
the operas which depend on it will disappear too 
for the same reason that the works of Monteverde 
and Handel have dropped out of the repertory, 
[102] 



New Art of the Singer 

that the Greek tragedies and the Elizabethan in- 
terludes are no longer current on our stage. 
None of our actors understands the style of Chi- 
nese plays ; consequently it would be impossible to 
present one of them in our theatre. As Deirdre 
says in Synge's great play, " It's a heartbreak 
to the wise that it's for a short space we have 
the same things only." We cannot, indeed, have 
everything. No one doubts that the plays of 
^Eschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles are great 
dramas; the operas I have just referred to can 
also be admired in the closet and probably they 
will be. Even today no more than two works of 
Rossini, the most popular composer of the early 
Nineteenth Century, are to be heard. What has 
become of Semiramide, La Cenerentola, and the 
others? There are no singers to sing them and 
so they have been dropped from the repertory 
without being missed. Can any of our young 
misses hum Di Tanti Palpiti? You know they 
cannot. I doubt if you can find two girls in New 
York (and I mean girls with a musical education) 
who can tell you in what opera the air belongs 
and yet in the early Twenties this tune was as 
popular as Un Bel Di is today. 

Coloratura singing has been called heartless, not 
altogether without reason. At one time its ex- 
[103] 



New Art of the Singer 

emplars fired composers to their best efforts. 
That day has passed. That day passed seventy 
years ago. It may occur to you that there is 
something wrong when singers of a certain type 
can only find the proper means to exploit their 
voices in works of the past, operas which are dead. 
It is to be noted that Nellie Melba and Amelita 
Galli-Curci are absolutely unfitted to sing in music 
dramas even so early as those of Richard Wagner ; 
Dukas, Strauss, and Stravinsky are utterly be- 
yond them. Even Adelina Patti and Marcella 
Sembrich appeared in few, if any, new works of 
importance. They had no bearing on the march 
of musical history. Here is an entirely para- 
doxical situation; a set of interpreters who exist, 
it would seem, only for the purpose of delivering 
to us the art of the past. What would we think 
of an actor who could make no effect save in the 
tragedies of Corneille? It is such as these who 
have kept Leo Ornstein from writing an opera. 
Berlioz forewarned us in his " Memoirs." He was 
one of the first to foresee the coming day : " We 
shall always find a fair number of female sing- 
ers, popular from their brilliant singing of bril- 
liant trifles, and odious to the great masters be- 
cause utterly incapable of properly interpreting 
them. They have voices, a certain knowledge of 
[104] 



' 



New Art of the Singer 

music, and flexible throats : they are lacking in 
soul, brain, and heart. Such women are regular 
monsters and all the more formidable to composers 
because they are often charming monsters. This 
explains the weakness of certain masters in writ- 
ing falsely sentimental parts, which attract the 
public by their brilliancy. It also explains the 
number of degenerate works, the gradual degrada- 
tion of style, the destruction of all sense of ex- 
pression, the neglect of dramatic properties, the 
contempt for the true, the grand, and the beauti- 
ful, and the cynicism and decrepitude of art in 
certain countries." 

So, even if, as the ponderous criticasters are 
continually pointing out, the age of bel canto is 
really passing there is no actual occasion for grief. 
All fashions in art pass and what is known as bel 
canto is just as much a fashion as the bombastic 
style of acting that prevailed in Victor Hugo's 
day or the " realistic " style of acting we prefer 
today. All interpretative art is based primarily 
on the material with which it deals and with con- 
temporary public taste. This kind of singing is 
a direct derivative of a certain school of opera 
and as that school of opera is fading more ex- 
pressive methods of singing are coming to the 
fore. The very first principle of bel canto, an 
[105] 



New Art of the Singer 

equalized scale, is a false one. With an equalized 
scale a singer can produce a perfectly ordered 
series of notes, a charming string of matched 
pearls, but nothing else. It is worthy of note 
that it is impossible to sing Spanish or negro 
folk-songs with an equalized scale. Almost all 
folk-music, indeed, exacts a vocal method of its 
interpreter quite distinct from that of the art 
song. 

We know now that true beauty lies deeper than 
in the emission of " perfect tone." Beauty is 
truth and expressiveness. The new art of the 
singer should develop to the highest degree the 
significance of the text. Calve once said that she 
did not become a real artist until she forgot that 
she had a beautiful voice and thought only of the 
proper expression the music demanded. 

Of the old method of singing only one quality 
will persist in the late Twentieth Century (mind 
you, this is deliberate prophecy but it is about as 
safe as it would be to predict that Sarah Bern- 
hardt will live to give several hundred more per- 
formances of La Dame aux Cornelias) and that is 
style. The performance of any work demands a 
knowledge of and a feeling for its style but style 
is about the last thing a singer ever studies. 
[106] 



New Art of the Singer 

When, however, you find a singer who understands 
style, there you have an artist ! 

Style is the quality which endures long after 
the singer has lost the power to produce a pure 
tone or to contrive accurate phrasing and so 
makes it possible for artists to hold their places 
on the stage long after their voices have become 
partially defective or, indeed, have actually de- 
parted. It is knowledge of style that accounts 
for the long careers of Marcella Sembrich and 
Lilli Lehmann or of Yvette Guilbert and Maggie 
Cline for that matter. It is knowledge of style 
that makes De Wolf Hopper a great artist in his 
interpretation of the music of Sullivan and the 
words of Gilbert. Some artists, indeed, with 
barely a shred of voice, have managed to main- 
tain their positions on the stage for many years 
through a knowledge of style. I might mention 
Victor Maurel, Max Heinrich (not on the opera 
stage, of course), Antonio Scotti, and Maurice 
Renaud. 

A singer may be born with the ability to pro- 
duce pure tones (I doubt if Mme. Melba learned 
much about tone production from her teachers), 
she may even phrase naturally, although this is 
more doubtful, but the acquirement of style is a 
[107] 



New Art of the Singer 

long and tedious process and one which generally 
requires specialization. For style is elusive. An 
auditor, a critic, will recognize it at once but 
very few can tell of what it consists. Neverthe- 
less it is fairly obvious to the casual listener that 
Olive Fremstad is more at home in the music 
dramas of Gluck and Wagner than she is in Car- 
men and Tosca, and that Marcella Sembrich is 
happier when she is singing Zerlina (as a Mozart 
singer she has had no equal in the past three 
decades) than when she is singing Lakme. Mme. 
Melba sings Lucia in excellent style but she prob- 
ably could not convince us that she knows how to 
sing a Brahms song. So far as I know she has 
never tried to do so. A recent example comes 
to mind in Maria Marco, the Spanish soprano, who 
sings music of her own country in her own lan- 
guage with absolutely irresistible effect, but on 
one occasion when she attempted Vissi d'Arte she 
was transformed immediately into a second-rate 
Italian singer. Even her gestures, ordinarily 
fully of grace and meaning, had become conven- 
tionalized. 

If this quality of style (which after all means an 
understanding of both the surface manner and 
underlying purpose of a composition and an abil- 
ity to transmit this understanding across the foot- 
[108] 



• 



New Art of the Singer 

lights) is of such manifest importance in the 
field of art music it is doubly so in the field of 
popular or folk-music. A foreigner had best 
think twice before attempting to sing a Swedish 
song, a Hungarian song, or a Polish song, popu- 
lar or folk. (According to no less an authority 
than Cecil J. Sharp, the peasants themselves differ- 
entiate between the two and devote to each a 
special vocal method. Here are his words [" Eng- 
lish Folk-Song "] : " But, it must be remembered 
that the vocal method of the folk-singer is in- 
separable from the folk-song. It is a cult which 
has grown up side by side with the folk-song, and 
is, no doubt, part and parcel of the same tradition. 
When, for instance, an old singing man sings a 
modern popular song, he will sing it in quite an- 
other way. The tone of his voice will change and 
he will slur his intervals, after the approved man- 
ner of the street-singer. Indeed, it is usually 
quite possible to detect a genuine folk-song simply 
by paying attention to the way in which it is 
sung.") Strangers as a rule do not attempt such 
matters although we have before us at the pres- 
ent time the very interesting case of Ratan Devi. 
It is a question, however, if Ratan Devi would be 
so much admired if her songs or their traditional 
manner of performance were more familiar to us. 
[ 109 ] 



New Art of the Singer 

On our music hall stage there are not more than 
ten singers who understand how to sing American 
popular songs (and these, as I have said elsewhere 
at some length, 1 constitute America's best claim 
in the art of music). It is very difficult to sing 
them well. Tone and phrasing have nothing to 
do with the matter; it is all a question of style 
(leaving aside for the moment the important mat- 
ter of personality which enters into an account- 
ing for any artist's popularity or standing). 
Elsie Janis, a very clever mimic, a delightful 
dancer, and perhaps the most deservedly popular 
artist on our music hall stage, is not a good in- 
terpreter of popular songs. She cannot be com- 
pared in this respect with Bert Williams, Blanche 
Ring, Stella Mayhew, Al Jolson, May Irwin, Ethel 
Levey, Nora Bayes, Fannie Brice, or Marie Cahill. 
I have named nearly all the good ones. The 
spirit, the very conscious liberties taken with the 
text (the vaudeville singer must elaborate his own 
syncopations as the singer of early opera em- 
broidered on the score of the composer) are not 
matters that just happen. They require any 
amount of work and experience with audiences. 
None of the singers I have named is a novice. 

i In an essay entitled " The Great American Composer " in 
my book, " Interpreters and Interpretations." 

[110] 



New Art of the Singer 

Nor will you find novices who are able to sing 
Schumann and Franz lieder, although they may 
be blessed with well-nigh perfect vocal organs. 

Still the music critics with strange persistence 
continue to adjudge a singer by the old formulas 
and standards: has she an equalized scale? Has 
she taste in ornament? Does she overdo the use 
of portamento, messa di voce, and such devices? 
How is her shake? etc., etc. But how false, how 
ridiculous, this is ! Fancy the result if new writ- 
ers and composers were criticized by the old laws 
(so they are, my son, but not for long) ! Cre- 
ative artists always smash the old tablets of com- 
mandments and it does not seem to me that in- 
terpretative artists need be more unprogressive. 
Acting changes. Judged by the standards by 
which Edwin Booth was assessed John Drew is 
not an actor. But we know now that it is a dif- 
ferent kind of acting. Acting has been flam- 
boyant, extravagant, and intensely emotional, 
something quite different from real life. The 
present craze for counterfeiting the semblance of 
ordinary existence on the stage will also die out 
for the stage is not life and representing life on 
the stage (except in a conventionalized or decora- 
tive form) is not art. Our new actors (with our 
new playwrights) will develop a new and fantas- 

[in] 



New Art of the Singer 

tic mode of expression which will supersede the 
present fashion. . . . Rubinstein certainly did 
not play the piano like Chopin. Presently a 
virtuoso will appear who will refuse to play the 
piano at all and a new instrument without a tem- 
pered scale will be invented so that he may indulge 
in all the subtleties between half-tones which are 
denied to the pianist. 

It's all very well to cry, " Halt ! " and " Who 
goes there? " but you can't stop progress any 
more than you can stop the passing of time. 
The old technique of the singer breaks down be- 
fore the new technique of the composer and the 
musician with daring will go still further if the 
singer will but follow. Would that some singer 
would have the complete courage to lead! But 
do not misunderstand me. The road to Par- 
nassus is no shorter because it has been newly 
paved. Indeed I think it is longer. Caffarelli 
studied six years before he made his debut as " the 
greatest singer in the world " but I imagine that 
Waslav Nijinsky studied ten before he set foot 
on the stage. The new music drama, combining 
as it does principles from all the arts is all- 
demanding of its interpreters. The new singer 
must learn how to move gracefully and awkwardly, 
how to make both fantastic and realistic gestures, 

[iia] 



New Art of the Singer 

always unconventional gestures, because conven- 
tions stamp the imitator. She must peer into 
every period, glance at every nation. Every 
nerve centre must be prepared to express any 
adumbration of plasticity. Many of the new 
operas, Carmen, La Dolores, Salome, Elektra, to 
name a few, call for interpretative dancing of the 
first order. Madama Butterfly and Lakme de- 
mand a knowledge of national characteristics. 
Pelleas et Melisande and Ariane et Barbe-Bleue re- 
quire of the interpreter absolutely distinct enun- 
ciation. In Handel's operas the phrases were re- 
peated so many times that the singer was excused 
if he proclaimed the meaning of the line once. 
After that he could alter the vowels and con- 
sonants to suit his vocal convenience. Monna 
Vanna and Tristan und Isolde exact of their in- 
terpreters acting of the highest poetic and imag- 
inative scope. . . . 

It is a question whether certain singers of our 
day have not solved these problems with greater 
success than that for which they are given 
credit. . . . Yvette Guilbert has announced pub- 
licly that she never had a teacher, that she would 
not trust her voice to a teacher. The enchant- 
ing Yvette practises a sound by herself until she is 
able to make it ; she repeats a phrase until she can 
[113] 



New Art of the Singer 

deliver it without an interrupting breath, and is 
there a singer on the stage more expressive than 
Yvette Guilbert? She sings a little tenor, a little 
baritone, and a little bass. She can succeed al- 
most invariably in making the effect she sets out 
to make. And Yvette Guilbert is the answer to 
the statement often made that unorthodox methods 
of singing ruin the voice. Ruin it for perform- 
ances of Linda di Chaminoux and La Sonnambula 
very possibly, but if young singers sit about saving 
their voices for performances of these operas they 
are more than likely to die unheard. It is a fact 
that good singing in the old-fashioned sense will 
help nobody out in Elektra, Ariane et Barbe- 
Blewe, Pelleas et Melisande, or The Nightingale. 
These works are written in new styles and they 
demand a new technique. Put Mme. Melba, Mme. 
Destinn, Mme. Sembrich, or Mme. Galli-Curci to 
work on these scores and you will simply have a 
sad mess. 

We have, I think, but a faint glimmering of 
what vocal expressiveness may become. Such 
torch-bearers as Mariette Mazarin and Feodor 
Chaliapine have been procaciously excoriated by 
the critics. Until recently Mary Garden, who of 
all artists on the lyric stage, is the most nearly in 
touch with the singing of the future, has been 
[ 114 ] 



New Art of the Singer 

treated as a charlatan and a fraud. W. J. Hen- 
derson once called her the " Queen of Unsong." 
Well, perhaps she is, but she is certainly better 
able to cope artistically with the problems of the 
modern music drama than such Queens of Song as 
Marcella Sembrich and Adelina Patti would be. 
Perhaps Unsong is the name of the new art. 

I do not think I have ever been backward in ex- 
pressing my appreciation of this artist. My essay 
devoted to her in " Interpreters and Interpreta- 
tions " will certainly testify eloquently as to my 
previous attitude in regard to her. But it has 
not always been so with some of my colleagues. 
Since she has been away from us they have learned 
something; they have watched and listened to 
others and so when Mary Garden came back to 
New York in Monna Vanna in January, 1918, they 
were ready to sing choruses of praise in her honour. 
They have been encomiastic even in regard to her 
voice and her manner of singing. 

Even my own opinion of this artist's work has 
undergone a change. I have always regarded her 
as one of the few great interpreters, but in the 
light of recent experience I now feel assured that 
she is the greatest artist on the contemporary lyric 
stage. It is not, I would insist, Mary Garden that 
has changed so much as we ourselves. She has, it 
[115] 



New Art of the Singer 

is true, polished her interpretations until they 
seem incredibly perfect, but has there ever been a 
time when she gave anything but perfect imper- 
sonations of Melisande or Thais? Has she ever 
been careless before the public? I doubt it. 

• The fact of the matter is that when Mary Gar- 
den first came to New York only a few of us were 
ready to receive her at anywhere near her true 
worth. In a field where mediocrity and brainless- 
ness, lack of theatrical instinct and vocal in- 
sipidity are fairly the rule her dominant person- 
ality, her unerring search for novelty of expres- 
sion, the very completeness of her dramatic and 
vocal pictures, annoyed the philistines, the profes- 
sors, and the academicians. They had been accus- 
tomed to taking their opera quietly with their after- 
dinner coffee and, on the whole, they preferred it 
that way. 

But the main obstacle in the way of her complete 
success lay in the matter of her voice, of her sing- 
ing. Of the quality of any voice there can always 
exist a thousand different opinions. To me the 
great beauty of the middle register of Mary Gar- 
den's voice has always been apparent. But what 
was not so evident at first was the absolute fitness 
of this voice and her method of using it for the 
dramatic style of the artist and for the artistic 
[116] 



m 



New Art of the Singer 

demands of the works in which she appeared. 
Thoroughly musical, Miss Garden has often puz- 
zled her critical hearers by singing Faust in one 
vocal style and Thais in another. But she was 
right and they were wrong. She might, indeed, 
have experimented still further with a new vocal 
technique if she had been given any encouragement 
but encouragement is seldom offered to any inno- 
vator. As Edgar Saltus puts it, " The number 
of people who regard a new idea or a fresh theory 
as a personal insult is curiously large ; indeed they 
are more frequent today than when Socrates 
quaffed the hemlock." It must, therefore, be a 
source of ironic amusement to her to find herself 
now appreciated not alone by her public, which 
has always been loyal and adoring, but also by 
the professors themselves. 

It would do no harm to any singer to study the 
multitude of vocal effects this artist achieves. I 
can think of nobody who could not learn something 
from her. How, for example, she gives her voice 
the hue and colour of a jeune file in Pelleas et 
Melisande, for although Melisande had been the 
bride of Barbe-Bleue before Golaud discovered her 
in the forest she had never learned to be anything 
else than innocent and distraught, unhappy and 
mysterious. Her treatment of certain important 
[117] 



New Art of the Singer 

phrases in this work is so electrifying in its effect 
that the heart of every auditor is pierced. Re- 
member, for example, her question to Pelleas at 
the end of the first act, " Pourquoi partez-vous? " 
to which she imparts a kind of dreamy intuitive 
longing ; recall the amazement shining through her 
grief at Golaud's command that she ask Pelleas to 
accompany her on her search for the lost ring: 
" Pelleas? — Avec Pelleas? — Mais Pelleas ne 
voudra pas. . . ." ; and do not forget the terrified 
cry which signals the discovery of the hidden 
Golaud in the park, " II y a qwelqw'un derriere 
nous! " 

In Morma Vanna her most magnificent vocal ges- 
ture rested on the single word Si in reply to 
Guido's " Tu ne reviendras pas? " Her per- 
formance of this work, however, offers many ex- 
amples of just such instinctive intonations. One 
more, I must mention, her answer to Guido's in- 
sistent, " Cet homme fa-t-il prise? " . . . " J'ai 
dit la verite. . . . II ne m 9 a pas towchee" sung 
with dignity, with force, with womanliness, and yet 
with growing impatience and a touch of sadness. 

Let me quote Pitts Sanborn : " It is easy to 

be flippant about Miss Garden's singing. Her 

faults of voice and technique are patent to a child, 

though he might not name them. One who has 

[118] 



New Art of the Singer 

become a man can ponder the greatness of her 
singing. I do not mean exclusively in Debussy, 
though we all know that as a singer of Debussy 
. . . she has scarce a rival. Take her mezza 
voce and her phrasing in the second act of 
Monna Vanna, take them and bow down before 
them. Ponder a moment her singing in Thais. 
The converted Thais, about to betake herself 
desertward with the insistent monk, has a solo to 
sing. The solo is Massenet, simon-pure Massenet, 
the idol of the Paris midinette. Miss Garden, with 
a defective voice, a defective technique, exalts and 
magnifies that passage till it might be the noblest 
air of Handel or of Mozart. By a sheer and un- 
ashamed reliance on her command of style, Miss 
Garden works that miracle, transfigures Massenet 
into something superearthly, overpowering. 
Will you rise up to deny that is singing? " 

As for her acting, there can scarcely be two 
opinions about that ! She is one of the few pos- 
sessors of that rare gift of imparting atmos- 
phere and mood to a characterization. Some 
exceptional actors and singers accomplish this feat 
occasionally. Mary Garden has scarcely ever 
failed to do so. The moment Melisande is dis- 
closed to our view, for example, she seems to be 
surrounded by an aura entirely distinct from the 

[119] 



New Art of the Singer 

aura which surrounds Monna Vanna, Jean, Thais, 
Salome, or Sapho. She becomes, indeed, so much 
a part of the character she assumes that the 
spectator finds great difficulty in dissociating her 
from that character, and I have found those who, 
having seen Mary Garden in only one part, were 
quite ready to generalize about her own per- 
sonality from the impression they had received. 

One of the tests of great acting is whether or 
not an artist remains in the picture when she is 
not singing or speaking. Mary Garden knows how 
to listen on the stage. She does not need to move 
or speak to make herself a part of the action and 
she is never guilty of such an offence against ar- 
tistry as that committed by Tamagno, who, ac- 
cording to Victor Maurel, allowed a scene in Otello 
to drop to nothing while he prepared himself to 
emit a high B. 

Watching her magnificent performance of 
Monna Vanna it struck me that she would make an 
incomparable Isolde. At the present moment I 
cannot imagine Mary Garden learning Boche or 
singing in it even if she knew it, but if some one 
will present us Wagner's (who hated the Germans 
as much as Theodore Roosevelt does) music drama 
in French or English with Mary Garden as Isolde, 
[120] 



New Art of the Singer 

I think the public will thank me for having sug- 
gested it. 

Or it would be even better if Schoenberg, or 
Stravinsky, or Leo Ornstein, inspired by the new 
light the example of such a singer has cast over 
our lyric stage, would write a music drama, ignor- 
ing the technique and the conventions of the past, 
as Debussy did when he wrote Pelleas et Me- 
lisande (creating opportunities which any opera- 
goer of the last decade knows how gloriously Miss 
Garden realized). It is thus that the new order 
will gradually become established. And then the 
new art . . . the new art of the singer. . . . 

April 18, 1918, 



[ 1*1 ] 



Au Bal Musette 

" Aupres de ma blonde 
Qu'il fait bon, fait bon, bon, bon. . . /' 

Old French Song. 



Au Bal Musette 



IT has often been remarked by philosophers 
and philistines alike that the commonest facts 
of existence escape our attention until they 
are impressed upon it in some unusual way. For 
example I knew nothing of the sovereign powers 
of citronella as a mosquito dispatcher until a 
plague of the insects drove me to make enquiries of 
a chemist. For years I believed that knocking the 
necks off bottles, lacking an opener, was the only 
alternative. A friend who caught me in this pre- 
dicament showed me the other use to which the 
handles of high-boy drawers could be put. It was 
long my habit to quickly dispose of trousers which 
had been disfigured by cigarette burns, but that 
was before I had heard of stoppage, a process by 
which the original weave is cleverly counterfeited. 
And, wishing to dance, in Paris, I have been guilty 
of visits to the great dance halls and to the small 
smart places where champagne is oppressively the 
only listed beverage. But that was before I dis- 
covered the bal musette. 

One July night in Paris I had dinner with a cer- 
tain lady at the Cou-Cou, followed by cognac at 
the Savoyarde. I find nothing strange in this 
[ 125 ] 



Au Bal Musette 



program ; it seems to me that I must have dined 
at the Cou-Cou with every one I have known in 
Paris from time to time, a range of acquaintance- 
ship including Fernand, the apache, and the 

Comtesse de J , and cognac at the Savoyarde 

usually followed the dinner. This evening at the 
Cou-Cou then resembled any other evening. Do 
you know how to go there ? You must take a taxi- 
cab to the foot of the hill of Montmartre and then 
be drawn up in the finiculaire to the top where 
the church of Sacre-Coeur squats proudly, for all 
the world like a mammoth Buddha (of course 
you may ride all the way up the mountain in your 
taxi if you like). From Sacre-Coeur one turns to 
the left around the board fence which, it would 
seem, will always hedge in this unfinished monu- 
ment of pious Catholics ; still turning to the left, 
through the Place du Tertre, in which one must 
not be stayed by the pleasant sight of the Mont- 
martroises bourgeoises eating petite marmite in 
the open air, one arrives at the Place du Calvaire. 
The tables of the Restaurant Cou-Cou occupy 
nearly the whole of this tiny square, to which there 
are only two means of approach, one up the stairs 
from the city below, and the other from the Place 
du Tertre. An artist's house disturbs the view on 
the side towards Paris ; opposite is the restaurant, 
[126] 



Au Bal Musette 



flanked on the right by a row of modest apartment 
houses, to which one gains entrance through a 
high wall by means of a small gate. Sundry visi- 
tors to these houses, some on bicycles, make occa- 
sional interruptions in the dinner. . . . From over 
this wall, too, comes the huge Cheshire cat (much 
bigger than Alice's, a beautiful animal), which 
lounges about in the hope, frequently realized, that 
some one will give him a chicken bone. . . . Con- 
terminous to the restaurant, on the right, is a tiny 
cottage, fronted by a still tinier garden, fenced in 
and gated. Many of the visitors to the Cou-Cou 
hang their hats and sticks on this fence and its 
gate. I have never seen the occupants of the 
cottage in any of my numerous visits to this open 
air restaurant, but once, towards eleven o'clock 
the crowd in the square becoming too noisy, the 
upper windows were suddenly thrown up and a 
pailful of water descended. ..." Per Bacchol " 
quoth the inn-keeper for, it must be known, the 
Restaurant Cou-Cou is Italian by nature of its 
patron and its cooking. 

This night, I say, had been as the others. The 
Cou-Cou is ( and in this respect it is not exceptional 
in Paris) safe to return to if you have found it to 
your liking in years gone by. Perhaps some day 
the small boy of the place will be grown up. He 

[ m ] 



Au Bal Musette 



is a real enfant terrible. It is his pleasure to 
tutoyer the guests, to amuse himself by pretending 
to serve them, only to bring the wrong dishes, or 
none at all. If you call to him he is deaf. Any 
hope of revanche is abandoned in the reflection of 
the super-retaliations he himself conceives. One 
young man who expresses himself freely on the sub- 
ject of Pietro receives a plate of hot soup down 
the back of his neck, followed immediately by a 
" Pardon, Monsieur" said not without respect. 
But where might Pietro's father be? He is in the 
kitchen cooking and if you find your dinner com- 
ing too slowly at the hands of the distracted maid 
servants, who also have to put up with Pietro, go 
into the kitchen, passing under the little vine-clad 
porch wherein you may discover a pair of lovers, 
and help yourself. And if you find some one else's 
dinner more to your liking than your own take that 
off the stove instead. At the Cou-Cou you pay 
for what you eat, not for what you order. And 
the Signora, Pietro's mother? That unhappy 
woman usually stands in front of the door, where 
she interferes with the passage of the girls going 
for food. She wrings her hands and moans, 
" Mon Dieu, quel monde! " with the idea that she 
is helping vastly in the manipulation of the 
machinery of the place. 

[ 128 ] 






Aii Bal Musette 



And the monde; who goes there? It is not too 
chic, this monde, and yet it is surely not bour- 
geois; if one does not recognize M. Rodin or M. 
Georges Feydeau, yet there are compensations. 
. . . The girls who come attended by bearded com- 
panions, are unusually pretty ; one sees them after- 
wards at the bars and bah if one does not go to 
the Abbaye or Page's. ... It makes a very pleas- 
ant picture, the Place du Calvaire towards nine 
o'clock on a summer night when tiny lights with 
pink globes are placed on the tables. The little 
square twinkles with them and the couples at the 
tables become very gay, and sometimes sentimen- 
tal. And when the pink lights appear a small 
boy in blue trousers comes along to light the street 
lamp. Then the urchins gather on the wall which 
hedges in the garden on the fourth side of the 
square and chatter, chatter, chatter, about all 
the things that French boys chatter about. 
Naturally they have a good deal to say about the 
people who are eating. 

I have described the Cou-Cou as it was this 
night and as it has been all the nights during the 
past eight summers that I have been there. 
The dinner too is always the same. It is served a 
la carte, but one is not given much choice. There 
is always a potage, always spaghetti, always 
[ 129 ] 



Au Bal Musette 



chicken and a salad, always a lobster, and zabag- 
lione if one wants it. The wine — it is called 
chianti — is tolerable. And the addition is made 
upon a slate with a piece of white chalk. " Qw'est- 
ce que monsieur a mange? " Sometimes it is very 
difficult to remember, but it is necessary. Such 
honesty compels an exertion. It is all added up 
and for the two of us on this evening, or any other 
evening, it may come to nine francs, which is not 
much to pay for a good dinner. 

Then, on this evening, and every other evening, 
we went on, back as we had come, round past the 
other side of Sacre-Coeur, past the statue of the 
Chevalier who was martyred for refusing to salute 
a procession (why he refused I have never found 
out, although I have asked everybody who has ever 
dined with me at the Cou-Cou) to the Cafe Savo- 
yarde, the broad windows of which look out over 
pretty much all the Northeast of Paris, over a 
glittering labyrinth of lights set in an obscure 
sea of darkness. It was not far from here that 
Louise and Julien kept house when they were in- 
terrupted by Louise's mother, and it was looking 
down over these lights that they swore those eter- 
nal vows, ending with Louise's " C'est une F eerie! " 
and Julien's " Non, c'est la vie! " One always 
remembers these things and feels them at the 
[130] 



Au Bal Musette 



Savojarde as keenly as one did sometime in the 
remote past watching Mary Garden and Leon 
Beyle from the topmost gallery of the Opera- 
Comique after an hour and a half wait in the 
queue for one franc tickets (there were always 
people turned away from performances of Louise 
and so it was necessary to be there early ; some 
other operas did not demand such punctuality). 
There is a terrace outside the Savoyarde, a tiny 
terrace, with just room for one man, who griddles 
gaufrettes, and three or four tiny tables with 
chairs. At one of these we sat that night (just 
as I had sat so many times before) and sipped our 
cognac. 

It is difficult in an adventure to remember just 
when the departure comes, when one leaves the 
past and strides into the future, but I think that 
moment befell me in this cafe . . . for it was the 
first time I had ever seen a cat there. He was a 
lazy, splendid animal. In New York he would have 
been an oddity, but in Paris there are many such 
beasts. Tawny he was and soft to the touch and 
of a hugeness. He was lying on the bar and as I 
stroked his coat he purred melifluously. ... I 
stroked his warm fur and thought how I belonged 
to the mystic band (Gautier, Baudelaire, Meri- 
mee, all knew the secrets) of those who are ac- 
[131] 



Au Bal Musette 



quainted with cats ; it is a feeling of pride we have 
that differentiates us from the dog lovers, the 
pride of the appreciation of indifference or of 
conscious preference. And it was, I think, as I 
was stroking the cat that my past was smote 
away from me and I was projected into the ad- 
venture for, as I lifted the animal into my arms, 
the better to feel its warmth and softness, it 
sprang with strength and unsheathed claws out 
of my embrace, and soon was back on the bar 
again, " just as if nothing had happened." There 
was blood on my face. Madame, behind the bar, 
was apologetic but not chastening. " II avait 
peur," she said. " II n'est pas mecharit." The 
wound was not deep, and as I bent to pet the cat 
again he again purred. I had interfered with his 
habits and, as I discovered later, he had interfered 
with mine. 

We decided to walk down the hill instead of 
riding down in the finiculaire, down the stairs 
which form another of the pictures in Louise, with 
the abutting houses, into the rooms of which one 
looks, conscious of prying. And you see the old 
in these interiors, making shoes, or preparing din- 
ner, or the middle-aged going to bed, but the young 
one never sees in the houses in the summer. . . . 
It was early and we decided to dance ; I thought of 
[132] 






Au Bal Musette 



the Moulin de la Galette, which I had visited twice 
before. The Moulin de la Galette waves its gaunt 
arms in the air half way up the butte of Mont- 
martre ; it serves its purpose as a dance hall of the 
quarter. One meets the pretty little Montmart- 
roises there and the young artists ; the entrance 
fee is not exorbitant and one may drink a bock. 
And when I have been there, sitting at a small 
table facing the somewhat vivid mural decoration 
which runs the length of one wall, drinking my 
brown bock, I have remembered the story which 
Mary Garden once told me, how Albert Carre to 
celebrate the hundredth — or was it the twenty- 
fifth? — performance of Louise, gave a dinner 
there — so near to the scenes he had conceived — 
to Charpentier and how, surrounded by some of 
the most notable musicians and poets of France, 
the composer had suddenly fallen from the table, 
face downwards ; he had starved himself so long to 
complete his masterpiece that food did not seem 
to nourish him. It was the end of a brilliant din- 
ner. He was carried away ... to the Riviera; 
some said that he had lost his mind; some said 
that he was dying. Mary Garden herself did not 
know, at the time she first sang Louise in America, 
what had happened to him. But a little later the 
rumour that he was writing a trilogy was spread 
[ 133 ] 



Aii Bal Musette 



about and soon it was a known fact that at least 
one other part of the trilogy had been written, 
Julien; that lyric drama was produced and every- 
body knows the story of its failure. Charpentier, 
the natural philosopher and the poet of Mont- 
martre, had said everything he had to say in 
Louise. As for the third play, one has heard 
nothing about that yet. 

But on this evening the Moulin de la Galette was 
closed and then I remembered that it was open on 
Thursday and this was Wednesday. Is it 
Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday that the Moulin 
de la Galette is open? I think so. By this time 
we were determined to dance ; but where ? We had 
no desire to go to some stupid place, common to 
tourists, no such place as the Bal Tabarin lured 
us ; nor did the Grelot in the Place Blanche, for 
we had been there a night or two before. The 
Elysee Montmartre (celebrated by George Moore) 
would be closed. Its patron followed the schedule 
of days adopted for the Galette. . . . To chance 
I turn in such dilemmas. ... I consulted a small 
boy, who, with his companion, had been good 
enough to guide us through many winding streets 
to the Moulin. Certainly he knew of a bal. 
Would monsieur care to visit a bal musette? His 
companion was horrified. I caught the phrase 
[134] 



Au Bal Musette 



" mal frequente" Our curiosity was aroused and 
we gave the signal to advance. 

There were two grounds for my personal cu- 
riosity beyond the more obvious ones. I seemed 
to remember to have read somewhere that the 
ladies of the court of Louis XIV played the 
musette, which is French for bag-pipe. It was the 
fashionable instrument of an epoch and the mu- 
settes played by the grandes dames were elab- 
orately decorated. The word in time slunk into 
the dictionaries of musical terms as descriptive of 
a drone bass. Many of Gluck's ballet airs bear 
the title, Musette. Perhaps the bass was even per- 
formed on a bag-pipe. ..." Mal frequents " in 
Parisian argot has a variety of significations ; in 
this particular instance it suggested apaches to 
me. A bal, for instance, attended by cocottes, 
mannequins, or modeles, could not be described as 
mal frequente unless one were speaking to a board- 
ing school miss, for all the public bals in Paris are 
so attended. No, the words spoken to me, in this 
connection, could only mean apaches. The con- 
fusion of epochs began to invite my interest and I 
wondered, in my mind's eye, how a Louis XIV 
apache would dress, how he would be represented 
at a costume ball, and a picture of a ragged silk- 
betrousered person, flaunting a plaid-bellied in- 

c 13s ] 



Aii Bal Musette 



stmment came to mind. An imagination often 
leads one violently astray. 

The two urchins were marching us through 
street after street, one of them whistling that 
pleasing tune, Le lendemain elle etait souriante. 
Dark passage ways intervened between us and our 
destination : we threaded them. The cobble stones 
of the underfoot were not easy to walk on for my 
companion, shod in high-heels from the Place 
Vendome. . . . The urchins amused each other 
and us by capers on the way. They could have 
made our speed walking on their hands, and they 
accomplished at least a third of the journey this 
way. Of course, I deluged them with large round 
five and ten centimes pieces. 

We arrived at last before a door in a short 
street near the Gare du Nord. Was it the Rue 
Jessaint? I do not know, for when, a year later, 
I attempted to re-find this bal it had disappeared. 
. . . We could hear the hum of the pipes for some 
paces before we turned the corner into the street, 
and never have pipes sounded in my ears with 
such a shrill significance of being somewhere they 
ought not to be, never but once, and that was 
when I had heard the piper who accompanies the 
dinner of the Governor of the Bahamas in Nassau. 
Marching round the porch of the Governor's Villa 
[136] 



^IlllH^Kv. 



Au Bal Musette 



he played The Blue Bells of Scotland and God 
Save the King, but, hearing the sound from a dis- 
tance through the interstices of the cocoa-palm 
fronds in the hot tropical night, I could only think 
of a Hindoo blowing the pipes in India, the charm- 
ing of snakes. . . . So, as we turned the corner 
into the Rue Jessaint, I seemed to catch a faint 
glimpse of a scene on the lawn at Versailles. . . . 
Louis XIV — it was the epoch of Cinderella ! 

But it wasn't a bag-pipe at all. That we dis- 
covered when we entered the room, after passing 
through the bar in the front. The bal was con- 
ducted in a large hall at the back of the maison. 
In the doorway lounged an agent de service, al- 
ways a guest at one of these functions, I found out 
later. There were rows of tables, long tables, with 
long wooden benches placed between them. One 
corner of the floor was cleared — not so large a 
corner either — for dancing, and on a small plat- 
form sat the strangest looking youth, like Peter 
Pan never to grow old, like the Monna Lisa a boy 
of a thousand years, without emotion or expres- 
sion of any sort. He was playing an accordion; 
the bag-pipe, symbol of the bal, hung disused on 
the wall over his head. His accordion, manipu- 
lated with great skill, was augmented by sleigh- 
bells attached to his ankles in such a manner that 
[ 137 ] 



Au Bal Musette 



a minimum of movement produced a maximum of 
effect ; he further added to the complexity of sound 
and rhythm by striking a cymbal occasionally 
with one of his feet. The music was both rhyth- 
mic and ordered, now a waltz, now a tune in two- 
four time, but never faster or slower, and never 
ending . . . except in the middle of each dance, 
for a brief few seconds, while the patronne col- 
lected a sow from each dancer, after which the 
dance proceeded. All the time we remained never 
did the musician smile, except twice, once briefly 
when I sent word to him by the waiter to order a 
consommation and once, at some length, when we 
departed. On these occasions the effect was al- 
most emotionally illuminating, so inexpressive was 
the ordinary cast of his features. A strange lad ; 
I like to think of him always sitting there, pas- 
sively, playing the accordion and shaking his 
sleigh-bells. He suggested a static picture, a 
thing of always, but I know it is not so, for even 
the next summer he had disappeared along with 
the bal and now he may have been shot in the 
Battle of the Marne or he may have murdered his 
gigolette and been transported to one of the 
French penal colonies. . . . An apache, en musi- 
cienf . . . black cloth around his throat, hair 
parted in the middle, velours trousers; a vrai 
[138] 



Au Bal Musette 



apache I tell you, a cool, cunning creature, 
shredded with cocaine and absinthe, monotonous in 
his virtuosity, playing the accordion. He had 
begun before we arrived and he continued after we 
left. I like to think of him as always playing, 
but it is not so. . . . 

As for the dancers, they were of various kinds 
and sorts. The women had that air which gave 
them the stamp of a quarter; they wore loose 
blouses, tucked in plaid skirts, or dark blue skirts, 
or multi-coloured calico skirts (if you have seen 
the lithographs of Steinlen you may reconstruct 
the picture with no difficulty) and they danced in 
that peculiar fashion so much in vogue in the 
Northern outskirts of Paris. The men seized 
them tightly and they whirled to the inexorable 
music when it was a waltz, whirled and whirled, 
until one thought of the Viennese and how they 
become as dervishes and Japanese mice when one 
plays Johann Strauss. But in the dances in two- 
four time their way was more our way, something 
between a one-step, a mattchiche, and a tango, 
with strange fascinating steps of their own devis- 
ing, a folk-dance manner. . . . Yes, under their 
feet, the dance became a real dance of the people 
and, when we entered into it, our feet seemed heavy 
and our steps conventional, although we tried to 
[139] 



Aii Bal Musette 



do what they did. (How they did laugh at us!) 
And the strange youth emphasized the effect of 
folk-dancing by playing old chansons de France 
which he mingled with his repertory of cafe-con- 
cert airs. And there was achieved that wonderful 
thing (to an artist) a mixture of genres — in- 
triguing one's curiosity, awakening the most dor- 
mant interest, and inspiring the dullest imagina- 
tion. 

This was my first night at a bal musette and 
my last in that year, for shortly afterwards I left 
for Italy and in Italy one does not dance. But 
the next season found me anxious to renew the ad- 
venture, to again enjoy the pleasures of the bal 
musette. I have said I was perhaps wrong in re- 
calling the street as the Rue Jessaint, or perhaps 
the old maison had disappeared. At any rate, 
when I searched I could not find the bal, not even 
the bar. So again I appealed for help, this time 
to a chauffeur, who drove me to the opposite side 
of the city, to the quartier of the Halles. . . . 
And I was beginning to think that the man had mis- 
understood me, or was stupid. " He will take me 
to a cabaret, l'Ange Gabriel or " — and I rapidly 
revolved in my mind the possibilities of this quar- 
ter where the apaches come to the surface to feel 
the purse of the tourist, who buys drinks as he 
[140] 



Au Bal Musette 



listens to stories of murders, some of which have 
been committed, for it is true that some of the 
real apaches go there (I know because my friend 
Fernand did and it was in l'Ange Gabriel that he 
knocked all the teeth down the throat of Ange- 
lique, sa gigolette. You may find the life of these 
creatures vividly and amusingly described in that 
amazing book of Charles-Henry Hirsch, " Le Tigre 
et Coquelicot." It is the only book I have read 
about the apaches of modern Paris that is worth 
its pages). But the idea of l'Ange Gabriel was 
not amusing to me this evening and I leaned for- 
ward to ask my chauffeur if he had it in mind to 
substitute another attraction for my desired bal 
musette. His reply was reassuring; it took the 
form of a gesture, the waving of a hand towards a 
small lighted globe depending over the door of a 
little marchand de vin. On this globe was painted 
in black letters the single word, bal. We were in 
the narrow Rue des Gravilliers — I was there for 
the first time — and the bal was the Bal des Grav- 
illiers. 

The bar is so small, when one enters, that there 
is no intimation of the really splendid aspect of 
the dancing room. For here there are two rooms 
separated by the dancing floor, two halls filled 
with tables, with long wooden benches between 
[141] 



Au Bal Musette 



them. Benches also line the walls, which are white 
with a grey-blue frieze; the lighting is brilliant. 
The musicians play in a little balcony, and here 
there are two of them, an accordionist and a 
guitarist. The performer on the accordion is a 
virtuoso; he takes delight in winding florid orna- 
ment, after the manner of some brilliant singer 
impersonating Rosina in II Barbiere, around 
the melodies he performs. As in the Rue Jessaint 
a sou is demanded in the middle of each dance. 
But there comparison must cease, for the life here 
is gayer, more of a character. The types are of 
the Holies. . . . There are strange exits. . . . 

A short woman enters ; " elle s' avarice en se 
balancant swr ses hanches comme une pouliche du 
haras de Cordowe "; she suggests an operatic Car- 
men in her swagger. She is slender, with short, 
dark hair, cropped a la Boutet de Monvel, and she 
flourishes a cigarette, the smoke from which 
wreathes upward and obscures — nay makes more 
subtle — the strange poignancy of her deep blue 
eyes. Her nose is of a snubness. It is the mome 
Estelle, and as she passes down the narrow aisle, 
between the tables, there is a stir of excitement. 
. . . The men raise their eyes. . . . Edouard, le 
petit, flicks a louis carelessly between his thumb 
and fore-finger, with the long dirty nails, and then 
[14£] 



Au Bal Musette 



passes it back into his pocket. Do not mistake 
the gesture ; it is not made to entice the mome, nor 
is it a sign of affluence; it is Edouard's means of 
demanding another louis before the night is up, if 
it be only a " louis de dix francs." Es telle looks 
at him boldly ; there is no fear in her eyes ; you can 
see that she would face death with Carmen's calm 
if the Fates cut the thread to that effect. . . . 
The music begins and Estelle dances with Car- 
mella, VArabe. Edouard glowers and pulls his 
little grey cap down lower. ... It is a waltz. 
. . . Suddenly he is on the floor and Estelle is 
pressed close to his body. . . . Carmella sits 
down. She smiles, and presently she is dancing 
with Jean-Baptiste. . . . Estelle and Edouard are 
now whirling, whirling, and all the while his dark 
eyes look down piercingly into her blue eyes. The 
music stops. Estelle fumbles in her stocking for 
two sous. Edouard lights a Maryland. 

There is a newcomer tonight. (I am talking 
to the agent de service.) She is of a youth and 
she is certainly from Brittany. I see her sitting 
in a corner, waiting for something, trying to know. 
" She will learn," says my friend, " She will learn 
to pay like the others." That is the gros Pierre 
who regards her. He twirls his moustache and 
considers, and in the end he lumbers to her and 
[143] 



Au Bal Musette 



asks her to dance. She is willing to do so, but the 
intensity of Pierre frightens her, frightens and in- 
trigues. . . . There is a sign on the wall that one 
must not stamp one's feet, but no other prohibi- 
tion. . . . He twists her finger purposely as they 
whirl . . . and whirl. She cowers. Gros Pierre 
is very big and strong. " T'es bath, mome," I 
hear him say, as they pass me by. . . . The dance 
over, he towers above her for a brief second before 
he swaggers out. . . . Estelle smiles. Her lips 
move and she speaks quickly to Edouard, le petit. 
. . . He does not listen. Why should he listen to 
his gigolette? She is wasting her time here any- 
way. He becomes impatient. . . . Carmella 
smiles across the room in a brief second of chance 
and Estelle answers the smile. Carmella holds up 
three fingers (it is now 1.30). Estelle nods her 
head quickly. The musicians are always playing, 
except in the middle of the dance when madame, la 
patronne, gathers in the sous. . . . Only from 
one she takes nothing. . . . He is twenty and very 
blonde and he is dancing with Madame. . . . Be- 
tween dances she pays his consommations. . . . 
Estelle rises slowly and walks out while Carmella, 
VArabe, follows her with his eyes. Edouard, le 
petit, lights a Maryland and poises a louis between 
his thumb and fore-finger, the nails of which are 
[ 144 ] 



Au Bal Musette 



long and dirty. . . . The music is always playing. 
. . . The little girl from Brittany is again alone 
in the corner. There is fear in her face. She is 
beginning to know. She summons her courage and 
walks to the door, on through. . . . The agent de 
service twirls his moustache and points after her. 
" She soon will know." I follow. She hesitates 
for a second at the street door and then starts 
towards the corner. . . . She reaches the corner 
and passes around it. ... I hear a scream . . . 
the sound of running footsteps . . . the beat of 
a horse's hoofs . . . the rolling of wheels on the 
cobble stones. . . . 



November 11, 1915, 



[ 145 ] 



Music and Cooking 

Give me some music, — music, moody food 
Of us that trade in love." 

Shakespeare's Cleopatra. 



Music and Cooking 



IT is my firm belief that there is an intimate 
relationship between the stomach and the ear, 
the saucepan and the crotchet, the mysteries 
of Mrs. Rorer and the mysteries of Mme. Mar- 
chesi. It has even occurred to me that one of the 
reasons our American composers are so barren in 
ideas is because as a race we are not interested in 
cooking and eating. Those countries in which 
music plays the greater part in the national life 
are precisely those which are the most interested in 
the culinary art. The food of Italy, the cooking, 
is celebrated; every peasant in that sunny land 
sings, and the voices of some Italians have rever- 
berated around the world. The very melodies of 
Verdi and Rossini are inextricably twined in our 
minds around memories of ravioli and zabaglione. 
Vesti la Giubba i s spaghetti. The composers of 
these melodies and their interpreters alike cooked, 
ate, and drank with joy, and so they composed and 
sang with joy too. Men with indigestion may be 
able to write novels, but they cannot compose great 
music. . . . The Germans spend more time eating 
than the people of any other country (at least they 
did once). It is small occasion for wonder, there- 
[ 149 ] 



Music and Cooking 

fore, that they produce so many musicians. They 
are always eating, mammoth plates heaped high 
with Bavarian cabbage, Koenigsberger Klopps, 
Hasenpfeffer, noodles, sauerkraut, Wiener Schnit- 
zel . . . drinking seidels of beer. They escort 
sausages with them to the opera. All the women 
have their skirts honeycombed with capacious 
pockets, in which they carry substantial lunches to 
eat while Isolde is deceiving King Mark. Why, 
the very principle of German music is based on a 
theory of well-fed auditors. The voluptuous 
scores of Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Max 
Schillings and Co. were not written for skinny, ill- 
nourished wights. Even Beethoven demands flesh 
and bone of his hearers. The music of Bach is 
directly aimed against the doctrine of asceticism. 
" The German capacity for feeling emotion in 
music has developed to the same extent as the 
capacity of the German stomach for containing 
food," writes Ernest Newman, " but in neither the 
one case nor the other has there been a correspond- 
ing development in refinement of perceptions. 
German sentimental music is not quite as gross as 
German food and German feeding, but it comes 
very near to it sometimes. . . . ' The Germans do 
not taste,' said Montaigne, ' they gulp.' As with 
their food, so with the emotions of their music. 
[150] 



Music and Cooking 

So long as they get them in sufficient mass, of the 
traditional quality, and with the traditional pun- 
gent seasoning, they are content to leave piquancy 
and variety of effect to others." . . . Once in 
Munich in a second storey window of the Bayer- 
ischebank I saw a small boy, about ten years old, 
sitting outside on the sill, washing the panes of 
glass. Opposite him on the same sill a dachshund 
reposed on her paws, regarding her master affec- 
tionately. Between the two stood a half-filled 
toby of foaming Lbwenbrau, which, from time to 
time, the lad raised to his lips, quaffing deep 
draughts. And when he set the pot down he whis- 
tled the first subject of Beethoven's Fifth Sym- 
phony. On Sunday afternoons, in the gardens 
which invariably surround the Munich breweries, 
the happy mothers, who gather to listen to the 
band play while they drink beer, frequently replen- 
ish the empty nursing bottles of their offspring at 
the taps from which flows the deep brown beverage. 
. . . The food of the French is highly artificial, 
delicately prepared and served, and flavoured with 
infinite art: vol au vent a la reine and Massenet, 
petits pois a Vetuvee and Gounod, oeuf Ste. Clo- 
tUde and Cesar Franck, all strike the tongue and 
the ear quite pleasantly. Des Esseintes and his 
liqueur symphony were the inventions of a French- 
[151] 



Music and Cooking 

man. . . . Hungarian goulash and Hungarian 
rhapsodies are certainly designed to be taken in 
conjunction. . . . Russian music tastes of kascha 
and bortsch and vodka. The happy, hearty eaters 
of Russia, the drunken, sodden drinkers of Rus- 
sia are reflected in the scores of Boris Godunow 
and PetrouchJca. ... In England we find that the 
great English meat pasties and puddings ap- 
peared in the same century with the immortal Pur- 
cell. . . . But in America we import our cooks 
. . . and our music. As a race we do not like to 
cook. We scarcely like to eat. We certainly do 
not enjoy eating. We will never have a national 
music until we have national dishes and national 
drinks and until we like good food. It is sig- 
nificant that our national drinks at present are 
mixed drinks, the ingredients of which are foreign. 
It is doubly significant that that section of the 
country which produces chicken a la Maryland, 
corn bread, beaten biscuit, mint juleps, and New 
Orleans fizzes has furnished us with the best of 
such music as we can boast. Maine has offered us 
no Swwanee River; we owe no Swmg Low, Sweet 
Chariot to Nebraska. The best of our ragtime 
composers are Jews, a race which regards eating 
and cooking of sufficient importance to include 
[153] 



Music and Cooking 

rules for the preparation and disposition of food 
in its religious tenets. 

Most musicians and those who enjoy listening to 
music, like to eat (this does not mean that people 
who like to eat always desire to listen to music at 
the same time, but nowadays one has little choice 
in the matter) ; what is more pregnant, most of 
them like to cook. We may include even the music 
critics, one of whom (Henry T. Finck) has writ- 
ten a book about such matters. The others eat 
. . . and expand. James Huneker devotes sixteen 
pages of " The New Cosmopolis " to the " maw of 
the monster." And as H. L. Mencken has pointed 
out, " The Pilsner motive runs through the book 
from cover to cover." Dinners are constantly 
being given for the musicians and critics to meet 
and talk over thirteen courses with wine. You 
may read Mr. Krehbiel's glowing accounts of the 
dinner given to Adelina Patti (a dinner referred 
to in Joseph Hergesheimer's lyric novel, " The 
Three Black Penny s ") on the occasion of her 
twenty-fifth anniversary as a singer, of the din- 
ner to Marcella Sembrich to mark her retirement 
from the opera stage, and of a dinner to Teresa 
Carrefio when she proposed a toast to her three 
husbands. . . . Go to the opera house and observe 
[153] 



Music and Cooking 

the lady singers, with their ample bosoms and 
their broad hips, the men with their expansive 
paunches . . . and use your imagination. Why 
is it, when a singer is interviewed for a news- 
paper, that she invariably finds herself tired of 
hotel food and wants an apartment of her own, 
where she can cook to her stomach's content? 
Why are the musical journals and the Sunday 
supplements of the newspapers always publishing 
pictures of contralti with their sleeves rolled back 
to the elbows, their Poiret gowns (cunningly and 
carefully exhibited nevertheless) covered with 
aprons, baking bread, turning omelettes, or pre- 
paring clam broth Uncle Sam? You, my reader, 
have surely seen these pictures, but it has perhaps 
not occurred to you to conjure up a reason for 
them. 

Edgar Saltus says : " A perfect dinner should 
resemble a concert. As the morceaux succeed each 
other, so, too, should the names of the composers." 
Few dinners in New York may be regarded as con- 
certs and still fewer restaurants may be looked 
upon as concert halls, except, unfortunately, in 
the literal sense. However, if you can find a res- 
taurant where opera singers and conductors eat 
you may be sure it is a good one. Huneker de- 
scribes the old Lienau's, where William Steinway, 
[154] 



Music and Cooking 

Anton Seidl, Theodore Thomas, Scharwenka, 
Joseffy, Lilli Lehmann, Max Heinrich, and Victor 
Herbert used to gather. Follow Alfred Hertz and 
you will be in excellent company in a double sense. 
Then watch him consume a plateful of Viennese 
pastry. If you have ever seen Emmy Destinn or 
Feodor Chaliapine eat you will feel that justice has 
been done to a meal. I once sat with the Russian 
bass for twelve hours, all of which time he was 
eating or drinking. He began with six plates of 
steaming onion soup (cooked with cheese and 
toast). The old New Year's eve festivities at the 
Gadski-Tauschers' resembled the storied ban- 
quets of the middle ages. . . . Boars' heads, meat 
pies, salade macedoine, coeur de palmier, hollan- 
daise were washed down with magnums and quarts 
of Irroy brut, 1900, Pol Roger, Chambertin, 
graceful Bohemian crystal goblets of Lieb- 
fraumilch and Johannisberger Schloss-Auslese. 
Mary Garden once sent a jewelled gift to the chef 
at the Ritz-Carlton in return for a superb fish 
sauce which he had contrived for her. H. E. 
Krehbiel says that Brignoli " probably ate as no 
tenor ever ate before or since — ravenously as a 
Prussian dragoon after a fast." Peche Melba has 
become a stable article on many menus in many 
cities in many lands. Agnes G. Murphy, in her 
[ 155 ] 



Music and Cooking 

biography of Mme. Melba, says that one day the 
singer, Joachim, and a party of friends stopped 
at a peasant's cottage near Bergamo, where they 
were regaled with such delicious macaroni that 
Melba persuaded her friends to return another day 
and wait while the peasant taught her the exact 
method of preparing the dish. In at least one 
New York restaurant oeuf Toscanini is to be found 
on the bill. I have heard Olive Fremstad com- 
plain of the cooking in this hotel in Paris, or that 
hotel in New York, or the other hotel in Munich, 
and when she found herself in an apartment of her 
own she immediately set about to cook a few spe- 
cial dishes for herself. 

Two musicians I know not only keep restaurants 
in New York, but actually prepare the dinners 
themselves. One of them is at the same time a 
singer in the Metropolitan Opera Company. 
Have you seen Bernard Begue standing before his 
cook stove preparing food for his patrons? His 
huge form, clad in white, viewed through the 
open doorway connecting the dining room with the 
kitchen, almost conceals the great stove, but oc- 
casionally you can catch sight of the pots and 
pans, the casseroles of pot-au-few y the roasting 
chicken, the filets of sole, all the ingredients of a 
dinner, cuisine bourgeoise . . . and after dining, 
[156] 



Music and Cooking 

you can hear Begue sing the Uncle-priest in 
Madama Butter-fly at the Opera House. 

Or have you seen Giacomo (and have not 
Meyerbeer and Puccini been bearers of this 
name?) Pogliani turning from the spaghetti theme 
chromatically to that of the risotto, the most suc- 
culent and appetizing risotto to be tasted this side 
of Bonvecchiati's in Venice ... or the polenta 
with fungJii. . . . But, best of all, the roasts, and 
were it not that the Prince Troubetskoy is a 
vegetarian you would fancy that he came to 
Pogliani's for these viands. And it must not be 
forgotten that this supreme cook is — or was — 
a bassoon player of the first rank, that he is a 
graduate of the Milan Conservatory. The bas- 
soon is a difficult instrument. It is sometimes 
called the " comedian of the orchestra," but there 
are few who can play it at all, still fewer who can 
play it well. Bassoonists are highly paid and 
they are in demand. Walter Damrosch used to 
say that when he was engaging a bassoon player 
he would ask him to play a passage from the 
bassoon part in Scheherazade. If he could play 
that, he could play anything else written for his 
instrument. Pogliani gave up the bassoon for the 
fork, spoon, and saucepan. Like Prospero he 
buried his magic wand and in Viafora's cartoon 
[ 157 ] 



Music and Cooking 

the instrument lies idle in the cobwebs. 
Charles Santley 's " Reminiscences " and " Stu- 
dent and Singer " are full of references to food : 
" ox-hearts, stuffed with onions," " a joint of 
meat, well cooked, with a bright brown crust which 
prevented the juices escaping," " a splendid shoul- 
der of mutton, a picture to behold, and a peas pud- 
ding" and " whaffles " are a few of the dishes re- 
ferred to with enthusiasm. In America a news- 
paper gravely informed its readers that " Santley 
says squash pie is the best thing to sing on he 
knows ! " Santley was a true pantophagist, but 
he was worsted in his first encounter with the 
American oyster : " I had often heard of the cele- 
brated American oyster, which half a dozen people 
had tried to swallow without success, and was 
anxious to learn if the story were founded on fact. 
Cummings conducted me to a cellar in Broadway, 
where, upon his order, a waiter produced two 
plates, on which were half a dozen objects, about 
the size and shape of the sole of an ordinary lady's 
shoe, on each of which lay what appeared to me 
to be a very bilious tongue, accompanied by 
smaller plates containing shredded white cabbage 
raw. I did not admire the look of the repast, but 
I never discard food on account of looks. I took 
up an oyster and tried to get it into my mouth, 
[ 158 ] 



Music and Cooking 

but it was of no use ; I tried to ram it in with the 
butt-end of the fork, but all to no purpose, and I 
had to drop it, and, to the great indignation of the 
waiter, paid and left the oysters for him to dis- 
pose of as he might like best. I presume those 
oysters are eaten, but I cannot imagine by whom ; 
I have rarely seen a mouth capable of the neces- 
sary expansion. I soon found out that there 
were plenty of delicious oysters in the States 
within the compass of ordinary jaws." 

J. H. Mapleson says in his " Memoirs " that at 
the Opera at Lodi, where he made his debut as a 
tenor, refreshments of all kinds were served to the 
audience between the acts and every box was fur- 
nished with a little kitchen for cooking macaroni 
and baking or frying pastry. The wine of the 
country was drunk freely, not out of glasses, but 
" in classical fashion — from bowls." Mapleson 
also tells us that Del Puente was a " very tolerable 
cook." On one trying occasion he prepared 
macaroni for his impressario. Michael Kelly de- 
clares that the sight of Signor St. Giorgio entering 
a fruit shop to eat peaches, nectarines, and a pine- 
apple, was really what stimulated him to study for 
a career on the stage. " While my mouth watered, 
I asked myself why, if I assiduously studied music, 
I should not be able to earn money enough to 
[159] 



Music and Cooking 

lounge about in fruit-shops, and eat peaches and 
pineapples as well as Signor St. Giorgio. , . ." 

Lillian Russell is a good cook. I can recom- 
mend her recipe for the preparation of mush- 
rooms : " Put a lump of butter in a chafing dish 
(or a saucepan) and a slice of Spanish onion and 
the mushrooms minus the stems ; let them simmer 
until they are all deliciously tender and the juice 
has run from them — about twenty minutes should 
be enough — then add a cupful of cream and let 
this boil. As a last touch squeeze in the juice of 
a lemon." When Luisa Tetrazzini was going mad 
with a flute in our vicinity she varied the monotony 
of her life by sending pages of her favourite recipes 
to the Sunday yellow press. Unfortunately, I 
neglected to make a collection of this series. A 
passion for cooking caused the death of Naldi, a 
buffo singer of the early Nineteenth Century. 
Michael Kelly tells the story : " His ill stars took 
him to Paris, where, one day, just before dinner, 
at his friend Garcia's house, in the year 1821, he 
was showing the method of cooking by steam, with 
a portable apparatus for that purpose; unfor- 
tunately, in consequence of some derangement of 
the machinery, an explosion took place, by which 
he was instantaneously killed." Almost everybody 
knows some story or other about a virtuoso, 
[ 160 ] 



Music and Cooking 

trapped into dining and asked to perform after 
dinner by his host. Kelly relates one of the first : 
" Fischer, the great oboe player, whose minuet 
was then all the rage . . . being very much 
pressed by a nobleman to sup with him after the 
opera, declined the invitation, saying that he was 
usually much fatigued, and made it a rule never to 
go out after the evening's performance. The 
noble lord would, however, take no denial, and as- 
sured Fischer that he did not ask him profes- 
sionally, but merely for the gratification of his so- 
ciety and conversation. Thus urged and encour- 
aged, he went; he had not, however, been many 
minutes in the house of the consistent nobleman, 
before his lordship approached him, and said, 6 I 
hope, Mr. Fischer, you have brought your oboe in 
your pocket.' — ' No, my Lord,' said Fischer, 6 my 
oboe never sups.' He turned on his heel, and in- 
stantly left the house, and no persuasion could 
ever induce him to return to it." You perhaps 
have heard rumours that Giuseppe Campanari pre- 
fers spaghetti to Mozart, especially when he cooks 
it himself. When this baritone was a member of 
the Metropolitan Opera Company his parapher- 
nalia for preparing his favourite food went every- 
where with him on tour. Heinrich Conried (or 
was it Maurice Grau?) once tried to take ad- 
[161] 



Music and Cooking 

vantage of this weakness, according to a story 
often related by the late Algernon St. John Brenon. 
Campanari was to appear as Kothner in Die Meis- 
tersimger, a character with no singing to do after 
the first act, although he appears in the procession 
in the third act. The singer told his impressario 
that he saw no reason why he should remain to the 
end and explained that he would leave his costume 
for a chorus man to don to represent him in the 
final episode. "What would the Master say?" 
demanded Conried, wringing his hands. " Would 
he approve of such a proceeding? No. That 
would not be truth ! That would not be art ! " 
Campanari was obdurate. The Herr Direktor be- 
came reflective. He was silent for a moment and 
then he continued : " If you will stay for the last 
act you will find in your room a little supper, 
a bottle of wine, and a box of cigars, which you 
may consume while you are waiting." In sooth 
when Campanari entered his dressing room after 
the first act of Wagner's comic opera he found that 
his director had kept his word. . . . The baritone 
ate the supper, drank the wine, put the cigars in 
his pocket . . . and went home ! 

If some singers are good cooks it does not fol- 
low that all good cooks are singers. Benjamin 
Lumley, in his " Reminiscences of the Opera," tells 
[162] 



Music and Cooking 

the sad story of the Countess of Cannazaro's cook, 
which should serve as a lesson to housemaids who 
are desirous of becoming moving picture stars. 
" This worthy man, excellent no doubt as a chef, 
took it into his head that he was a vocalist of the 
highest order, and that he only wanted oppor- 
tunity to earn musical distinction. His strange 
fancy came to the knowledge of Rubini, and it was 
arranged that a performance should take place in 
the morning, in which the cook's talent should be 
fairly tested. Certainly every chance was af- 
forded him. Not only was he encouraged by 
Rubini and Lablache (whose gravity on the occa- 
sion was wonderful), but by a few others, Costa 
included, as instrumentalists. The failure was 
miserable, ridiculous, as everybody expected." 
Frederick Crowest describes a certain Count Cas- 
tel de Maria who had a spit that played tunes, 
" and so regulated and indicated the condition of 
whatever was hung upon it to roast. By a sin- 
gular mechanical contrivance this wonderful spit 
would strike up an appropriate tune whenever a 
joint had hung sufficiently long on its particular 
roast. Thus, Oh! the roast beef of Old England, 
when a sirloin had turned and hung its appointed 
time. At another air, a leg of mutton, a VAng- 
laise would be found excellent ; while some other 
[163] 



Music and Cooking 

tune would indicate that a fowl a la Flamande was 
cooked to a nicety and needed removal from the 
fowl roast." 

To Crowest, too, I am indebted for a list of 
beverages and eatables which certain singers held 
in superstitious awe as capable of refreshing their 
voices. Formes swore by a pot of good porter 
and Wachtel is said to have trusted to the yolk of 
an egg beaten up with sugar to make sure of his 
high Cs. The Swedish tenor, Labatt, declared 
that two salted cucumbers gave the voice the true 
metallic ring. Walter drank cold black coffee 
during a performance; Southeim took snuff and 
cold lemonade ; Steger, beer ; Niemann, cham- 
pagne, slightly warmed, (Huneker once saw Nie- 
mann drinking cocktails from a beer glass; he 
sang Siegmund at the opera the next night) ; 
Tichatschek, mulled claret; Rubgam drank mead; 
Nachbaur ate bonbons ; Arabanek believed in Gam- 
poldskirchner wine. Mile. Brann-Brini took beer 
and cafe au lait, but she also firmly believed in 
champagne and would never dare venture the great 
duet in the fourth act of Les Huguenots without a 
bottle of Moet Cremant Rose. Giardini being 
asked his opinion of Banti, previous to her arrival 
in England, said : " She is the first singer in Italy 
and drinks a bottle of wine every day." Malibran 
[ 164 ] 



Music and Cooking 

believed in the efficacy of porter. She made her 
last appearances in opera in Balfe's Maid of Artois 
during the fall of 1836 in London. On the first 
night she was in anything but good physical con- 
dition and the author of " Musical Recollections 
of the Last Half-Century " tells how she pulled 
herself through: " She remembered that an im- 
mense trial awaited her in the finale of the third 
act ; and finding her strength giving way, she sent 
for Mr. Balfe and Mr. Bunn, and told them that 
unless they did as they were bid, after all the pre- 
vious success, the end might result in failure ; but 
she said, ' Manage to let me have a pot of porter 
somehow or other before I have to sing, and I will 
get you an encore which will bring down the house.' 
How to manage this was difficult ; for the scene was 
so set that it seemed scarcely possible to hand her 
up ' the pewter ' without its being witnessed by the 
audience. After much consultation, Malibran 
having been assured that her wish should be ful- 
filled, it was arranged that the pot of porter 
should be handed up to her through a trap in the 
stage at the moment when Jules had thrown him- 
self on her body, supposing that life had fled ; and 
Mr. Templeton was drilled into the manner in 
which he should so manage to conceal the neces- 
sary arrangement, that the audience would never 
[165] 



Music and Cooking 

suspect what was going on. At the right moment 
a friendly hand put the foaming pewter through 
the stage, to be swallowed at a draught, and success 
was won! . . . Malibran, however, had not over- 
estimated her own strength. She knew that it 
wanted but this fillip to carry her through. She 
had resolved to have an encore, and she had it, in 
such a fashion as made the roof of ' Old Drury - 
ring as it had never rung before. On the repeti- 
tion of the opera and afterwards, a different ar- 
rangement of the stage was made, and a property 
calabash containing a pot of porter was used ; but 
although the same result was constantly won, Mali- 
bran always said it was not half so ' nice,' nor did 
her anything like the good it would have done if 
she could only have had it out of the pewter." 
Clara Louise Kellogg in her very lively " Mem- 
oirs " publishes a similar tale of another singer : 
" It was told of Grisi that when she was growing 
old and severe exertion told on her she always, 
after her fall as Lucrezia Borgia, drank a glass of 
beer sent up to her through the floor, lying with 
her back half turned to the audience." Miss Kel- 
logg complains of the breaths of the tenors she 
sang with : " Stigelli usually exhaled an aroma of 
lager beer ; while the good Mazzoleni invariably ate 
from one to two pounds of cheese the day he was to 
[ 166 ] 



Music and Cooking 

sing. He said it strengthened his voice. Many 
of them affected garlic." It is necessary, of 
course, that a singer should know what foods 
agree with him. He must keep himself in excel- 
lent physical condition: small wonder that many 
artists are superstitious in this regard. 

Charles Santley, who was so fond of eating and 
drinking himself, offers some excellent advice 
on the subject in " Student and Singer ": " How 
the voice is produced or where, except that it is 
through the passage of the throat, is unimpor- 
tant ; it is reasonable to say that the passage must 
be kept clear, otherwise the sound proceeding from 
it will not be clear. I have known many instances 
of singers undergoing very disagreeable opera- 
tions on their throats for chronic diseases of va- 
rious descriptions ; now, my observation and ex- 
perience assure me that, in ninety-nine cases out 
of a hundred, the root of the evil is chronic in- 
attention to food and raiment. It is a common 
thing to hear a singer say, c I never touch such- 
and-such food on the days I sing.' My dear 
young friend, unless you are an absolute idiot, 
you would not partake of anything on the days 
you sing which might disagree with you, or over- 
tax your digestive powers ; it is on the days you 
do not sing you ought more particularly to exer- 
[167] 



Music and Cooking 

cise your judgment and self-denial. I do not of- 
fer the pinched-up pilgarlic who dines off a wiz- 
ened apple and a crust of bread as a model for 
imitation; at the same time, I warn you seriously 
against following the example of the gobbling 
glutton who swallows every dish that tempts his 
palate." 

Rossini, after he had composed Guillaume Tell, 
retired. He was thirty-seven, a man in perfect 
health, and he lived thirty-nine years longer, to 
the age of seventy-six, yet he never wrote another 
opera, hardly indeed did he dip his pen in ink at 
all. These facts have seriously disconcerted his 
biographers, who are at a loss to assign reasons 
for his actions. W. F. Apthorp gives us an in- 
genious explanation in " The Opera Past and 
Present." He says that after Tell Rossini's pride 
would not allow him to return to his earlier Italian 
manner, while the hard work needed to produce 
more Tells was more than his laziness could stom- 
ach. . . . Perhaps, but it must be remembered 
that Rossini did not retire to his library or his 
music room, but to his kitchen. The simple ex- 
planation is that he preferred cooking to compos- 
ing, a fact easy to believe (I myself vastly prefer 
cooking to writing). He could cook risotto bet- 
ter than any one else he knew. He was dubbed a 
[ 168 ] 



Music and Cooking 

" hippopotamus in trousers," and for six years be- 
fore he died he could not see his toes, he was so fat. 
Sir Arthur Sullivan relates an anecdote which 
shows that Rossini was conscious of his grossness. 
Once in Paris Sullivan introduced Chorley to Ros- 
sini, when the Italian said, " Je vols, avec plaisir, 
que monsieur iCa pas de ventre." Chorley indeed 
was noticeably slender. Rossini could write more 
easily, so his biographers tell us, when he was under 
the influence of champagne or some light wine. 
His provision merchant once begged him for an 
autographed portrait. The composer gave it to 
him with the inscription, " To my stomach's best 
friend." The tradesman used this souvenir as an 
advertisement and largely increased his business 
thereby, as such a testimonial from such an ac- 
knowledged epicure had a very definite value. J. 
B. Weckerlin asserts that when Rossini dined at 
the Rothschild's he first went to the kitchen to pay 
his respects to the chef, to look over the menu, and 
even to discuss the various dishes, after which he 
ascended to the drawing room to greet the family 
of the rich banker. Mme. Alboni told Weckerlin 
that Rossini had dedicated a piece of music to the 
Rothschild's chef. 

Anfossi, we are informed, could compose only 
when he was surrounded by smoking fowls and 
[169] 



Music and Cooking 

Bologna sausages ; their fumes seemed to inflame 
his imagination, to feed his muse; his brain was 
stimulated first through his nose and then through 
his stomach. When Gluck wrote music he betook 
himself to the open fields, accompanied by at least 
two bottles of champagne. Salieri told Michael 
Kelly that a comic opera of Gluck's being per- 
formed at the Elector Palatine's theatre, at 
Schwetzingen, his Electoral Highness was struck 
with the music, and inquired who had composed 
it ; on being informed that he was an honest Ger- 
man who loved old wme, his Highness immediately 
ordered him a tun of Hock. Beethoven, on the 
contrary, seems to have fed on his thoughts occa- 
sionally, although there is evidence that he was not 
only a good eater but also a good cook (the 
mothers of both Beethoven and Schubert were 
cooks in domestic service). There is a story re- 
lated of him that about the time he was compos- 
ing the Sixth Symphony he walked into a Viennese 
restaurant and ordered dinner. While it was 
being prepared, he became involved in thought, 
and when the waiter returned to serve him, he 
said : " Thank you, I have dined ! " laid the price 
of the dinner on the table, and took his departure. 
Gretry, too, lost his appetite when he was compos- 
ing. There are numerous references to eating and 

[ no ] 



Music and Cooking 

drinking in Mendelssohn's letters. His particu- 
lar preferences, according to Sir George Grove, 
were for rice milk and cherry pie. Dussek was a 
famous eater, and it is said that his ruling passion 
eventually killed him. His patron, the Prince of 
Benevento, paid the composer eight hundred na- 
poleons a year, with a free table for three per- 
sons, at which, as a matter of fact, one person 
usually presided. A musical historian tells us that 
in the summer of 1797 he was dining with three 
friends at the Ship Tavern in Greenwich, when 
the waiter came and laid a cloth for one person at 
the next table, placing thereon a dish of boiled 
eels, one of fried flounders, a bowled fowl, a dish 
of veal cutlets, and a couple of tarts. Then Dus- 
sek entered and made away with the lot, leaving 
but the bones ! In W. T. Parke's " Musical 
Memoirs " justice is done to the appetite of one 
C. F. Baumgarten, for many years leader of the 
band and composer at Covent Garden Theatre. 
Once at supper after the play he and a friend ate 
a full-grown hare between them. He would never 
condescend to drink out of anything but a quart 
pot. On one occasion, at the request of his 
friends, Baumgarten was weighed before and after 
dinner. There was eight pounds difference ! .Wil- 
liam Shield, the composer who wrote many operas 
[171] 



Music and Cooking 

for Covent Garden Theatre, beginning aptly 
enough with one called The Flitch of Bacon, was 
something of an eater. Parke tells how at a din- 
ner one evening there was a brace of partridges. 
The hostess handed Shield one of these to carve 
and absent-mindedly he set to and finished it, 
while the other guests were forced to make shift 
with the other partridge. Handel was a great 
eater. He was called the " Saxon Giant," as a 
tribute to his genius, but the phrase might have 
had a satirical reference to his enormous bulk. 
Intending to dine one day at a certain tavern, he 
ordered beforehand a dinner for three. At the 
hour appointed he sat down to the table and ex- 
pressed astonishment that the dinner was not 
brought up. The waiter explained that he would 
begin serving when the company arrived. " Den 
pring up de tinner brestissimo," replied Handel, 
" I am de gombany." Lulli never forsook the cas- 
serole. Paganini was as good a cook as he was 
a violinist. Parke tells a story of Weichsell, not 
too celebrated a musician, but the father of Mrs. 
Billington and Charles Weichsell, the violinist: 
" He would occasionally supersede the labours of 
his cook, and pass a whole day in preparing his 
favourite dish, rump-steaks, for the stewing pan ; 
and after the delicious viand had been placed on 
[17^] 



Music and Cooking 

the dinner-table, together with early green peas 
of high price, if it happened that the sauce was not 
to his liking he has been known to throw rump- 
steaks, and green peas, and all, out of the window, 
whilst his wife and children thought themselves for- 
tunate in not being thrown after them." 

Is there a cooking theme in Siegfried to describe 
Mime's brewing? Lavignac and others, who have 
listed the Ring motive, have neglected to catalogue 
it, but it is mentioned by Old Fogy. Practically 
a whole act is taken up in Louise with the prep- 
aration for and consumption of a dinner. Scar- 
pia eats in Tosca and the heroine kills him with a 
table knife. There is much talk of food in Han- 
sel und Gretel and there is a supper in The Merry 
Wives of Windsor. There are drinking songs in 
Don Giovanni, Lucrezia Borgia, Hamlet, La Trav- 
iata, Girofle-Girofla. . . . The reference to whis- 
key and soda in Madama Butterfly is celebrated. 
J. E. Cox, the author of " Musical Recollections," 
describes Herr Pischek in the supper scene of Don 
Giovanni as " out-heroding Herod by swallowing 
glass after glass of champagne like a sot, and 
gnawing the drumstick of a fowl, which he held 
across his mouth with his fingers, just as any of 
his own middle-class countrymen may be seen any 
day of the week all the year round at the mit-tag 
[ 173 ] 



>J 



Music and Cooking 

or abend-essen feeding at one of their largely fre- 
quented tables-d'hote." Eating or drinking on the 
stage is always fraught with danger, as Charles 
Santley once discovered during Papageno's supper 
scene in The Magic Flute: "The supper which 
Tamino commands for the hungry Papageno con- 
sisted of pasteboard imitations of good things, but 
the cup contained real wine, a small draught of 
which I found refreshing on a hot night in July, 
amid the dust and heat of the stage. On the 
occasion in question I was putting the cup to lips, 
when I heard somebody call to me from the wings ; 
I felt very angry at the interruption, and was 
just about to swallow the wine when I heard an 
anxious call not to drink. Suspecting something 
was wrong, I pretended to drink, and deposited the 
cup on the table. Immediately after the scene I 
made inquiries about the reason for the caution I 
received, and was informed that as each night the 
carpenters, who had no right to it, finished what 
remained of the wine before the property men, 
whose perquisite it was, could lay hold of the cup, 
the latter, to give their despoilers a lesson, had 
mingled castor-oil with my drink ! " 

A young husband of my acquaintance once be- 
moaned to me the fact that his wife seemed des- 
tined to become a great singer. " She is such a 
[174] 



Music and Cooking 

remarkable cook ! " he explained to account for his 
despondency. I reassured him : " She will cook 
with renewed energy when she begins to sing Sieg- 
linde and Tosca. . . . She will practise Vissi 
d'Arte over the gumbo soup and Du herstes 
Wunder! while the Frankfurters are sizzling. Her 
trills, her chromatic scales, and her messa di voce 
will come right in the kitchen ; she will equalize her 
scale and learn to breathe correctly bending over 
the oven. It is even likely that she will improve 
her knowledge of portamento while she is washing 
dishes. When she can prepare a succulent roast 
suckling pig she will be able to sing Ocean, thou 
mighty monster! and she will understand Abscheu- 
licher when she understands the mysteries of old- 
fashioned strawberry shortcake. If you hear her 
shrieking Suicidio! invoking Agamemnon, or ap- 
pealing to the Casta Diva among the kettles and 
pots be not alarmed. . . . For the love you bear 
of good food, man, do not discourage your wife's 
ambition. The more she loves to sing, the better 
she will cook ! " 

July 17, 1917, 



[175] 



An Interrupted Conversation 

" We can never depend upon any right adjustment 
of emotion to circumstance." 

Max Beerbohm. 



An Interrupted Conversation 



ORDINARILY one does not learn things 
about oneself from Edmund Gosse, but my 
discovery that I am a Pyrrhonist is due to 
that literary man. A Pyrrhonist, says Mr. Gosse, 
is " one who doubts whether it is worth while to 
struggle against the trend of things. The man 
who continues to cross the road leisurely, although 
the cyclists' bells are ringing, is a Pyrrhonist — 
and in a very special sense, for the ancient phi- 
losopher who gives his name to the class made him- 
self conspicuous by refusing to get out of the way 
of careering chariots." Now the most unfamiliar 
friend I have ever walked with knows my extreme 
impassivity at the corners of streets, remembers 
the careless attitude with which I saunter from 
kerb to kerb, whether it be across the Grand Boule- 
vard, Piccadilly, or Fifth Avenue. Only once 
has this nonchalant defiance of traffic caused me 
to come to even temporary grief; that was on the 
last night of the year 1915, when, in crossing 
Broadway, I became entangled, God knows how, 
in the wheels of a swiftly passing vehicle, and 
found myself, top hat and all, in the most igno- 
minious position before I was well aware of what 
[ H9 ] 



Interrupted Conversation 

had really happened. Then a policeman stooped 
over me, book and pencil in hand, and another 
held the chauffeur of the victorious taxi-cab at 
bay some yards further up the street. But I was 
not hurt and I waved them all away with a mag- 
nanimous gesture. ... It is owing to this habit 
of mine that I often make interesting rencontres 
in the middle of streets. It accounts, in fact, for 
my running, quite absent-mindedly, plump into 
Dickinson Sitgreaves, who is more American than 
his name sounds, one August day in Paris. 

It was one of those charming days which make 
August perhaps the most delightful month to spend 
in Paris, although the facts are not known to 
tourists. Many a sly French pair, however, bored 
with Trouville, or the season at Aix, take ad- 
vantage of the allurements of a Paris August to re- 
turn surreptitiously to the boulevards. On this 
particular day almost all the seduction of an Oc- 
tober day was in the air, a splendid dull warm- 
cool crispness, which filtered down through the 
faded chestnut leaves from the sunlight, and left 
pale splotches of purple and orange on the 
trottoirs ... a really marvellous day, which I 
was spending in that most excellent occupation in 
Paris of gazing into shops and, passing cafes, star- 
ing into the faces of those who sat on the ter- 
[180] 



Interrupted Conversation 

rasses. . . . But this is an occupation for one 
alone; so, when I met Sitgreaves, we joined a ter- 
rasse ourselves. We were near the Napolitain 
and there he and I sat down and began to talk as 
only we two can talk together after long sep- 
aration. He explained in the beginning how I 
had interrupted him. . . . There was a fille, some 
little Polish beauty who had captivated his senses 
a day or so before, brought to him quite by acci- 
dent in an hotel where the patron furnished his 
clients with such pleasure as the town and his ad- 
dress book afforded. ... I knew the patron my- 
self, a fluent, amusing sort of person, who had been 
a cuirassier and who resembled Mayol ... a cafe- 
concert proprietor of an hotel. ... It was his 
boast that he had never disappointed a client and 
it is certain that he would promise anything. 
Some have said that his stock in trade was one 
pretty girl, who assumed costumes, ages, hair, and 
accents, to please whatever demand was made upon 
her, but this I do not believe. There must have 
been at least two of them. The Grand Duchess 
Anastasia, it was rumoured, had dined with Mar- 
cel at one time, in his little hotel, and certainly 
one king had been seen to go there, and one mem- 
ber of the English royal family, but Marcel re- 
mained simple and obliging. 

[ "I ] 



Interrupted Conversation 

" When will you look up the little Polonaise? " 
I asked, as we sipped Amer Picon and stared with 
fresh interest at each new boot and ankle that 
passed. Paris in August is like another place in 
May. 

" Why don't you come along ? " queried Sit- 
greaves in reply, " and we could go at once. . . . 
Oh, I know that you are in no mood for pleasure. 
You see the point is that I shall have to wait. 
Marcel will have to send for the fille. It is a bore 
to wait in a room with red curtains and a picture 
of Amour et Psyche on the walls. . . . What have 
you been doing? " He paid the consommation 
and started to leave without waiting for a reply, 
because he knew of my complaisance. I rose with 
him and we walked down the boulevard. 

" What is there to do in Paris in August but 
to enjoy oneself? " I asked. " I have made friends 
with an apache and his gigolette. We eat bread 
and cheese and drink bad wine on the fortifications. 
... In the afternoon I walk. Sometimes I go to 
the Luxembourg gardens to hear the band bray 
sad music, or to watch the little boys play diavolo, 
or sail their tiny boats about the fountain pond; 
sometimes I walk quite silently up the Avenue 
Gabriel, with its triste line of trees, and dream 
that I am a Grand Duke ; in the evening there are 
[ 182 ] 



Interrupted Conversation 

again the t err asses of the cafes, dinner in Mont- 
martre at the Clou, or the Cou-Cou, a revue at La 
Cigale, but it is all governed, my day and my night, 
by what happens and by whom I meet. . . . Have 
you seen Jacques Blanche's portrait of Nijinsky ? " 

" I think it is Picasso that interests me now," 
Sitgreaves was saying. " He puts wood and pieces 
of paper into his composition ; architecture, that's 
what it is. ... I don't go to Blanche's any more. 
It's too delightfully perfect, the atmosphere there. 
. . . The books are by all the famous writers, and 
they are all dedicated to Blanche ; the pictures are 
all of the great men of today, and they are all 
painted by Blanche; the music is played by the 
best musicians. . . . Do you know, I think 
Blanche is the one man who has made a success- 
ful profession of being an amateur — unless one 
excepts Robert de la Condamine. . . . You can 
scarcely call a man who does so much a dilettante. 
Yes, I think he is an amateur in the best sense." 

" I met the Countess of Jena there the other 
day," I responded. " She had scarcely left the 
room before three people volunteered, sans ran- 
cune, to tell her story. She is a devout Catholic, 
and her husband contrived in some way to substi- 
tute a spy for the priest in the confessional. He 
acquired an infinite amount of information, but it 

[183] 



Interrupted Conversation 

didn't do him any good. She is so witty that 
every one invites her everywhere in spite of her 
reputation, and he is left to dine alone at the 
Meurice. Dull men simply are not tolerated in 
Paris. 

" It was at Blanche's last year that I met 
George Moore," I continued. " You know I have 
just seen him in London. He is at work on The 
Apostle, making a novel of it, to be called ' The 
Brook Kerith.' . . . For a time he thought of fin- 
ishing it up as a play because a novel meant a 
visit to Palestine and that was distasteful to him, 
but it finally became a novel. He went to Pales- 
tine and stayed six weeks, just long enough to find 
a monastery and to study the lay of the country. 
For he says, truly enough, that one cannot imagine 
landscapes ; one does not know whether there is a 
high or low horizon. There may be a brook which 
all the characters must cross. It is necessary to 
see these things. Besides he had to find a monas- 
tery. . . . He told me of his thrill when he dis- 
covered an order of monks living on a narrow ledge 
of cliff, with 500 feet sheer rise and descent above 
and below it . . . and when he had found this 
his work was done and he returned to England to 
write the book, a reaction, for he told me that he 
was getting tired of being personal in literature. 
[ 184 ] 



Interrupted Conversation 

The book will exhibit a conflict between two types : 
Christ, the disappointed mystic, and Paul ; Christ, 
who sees that there is no good to be served in sav- 
ing the world by his death, and Paul, full of hope, 
idealism, and illusions. It is the drama of the 
conflict between the nature which is affected by 
externals and that which is not, he told me." 

" It's a subject for Anatole France," said Sit- 
greaves. " Moore, in my opinion, is not a novelist. 
His great achievements are his memoirs. I was 
interested in ' Evelyn Innes ' and ' Esther Waters,' 
but something was lacking. There is nothing 
lacking in the three volumes of ' Hail and Fare- 
well.' They grow in interest. Moore has found 
his metier." 

" But he insists," I explained, before the door 
of the little hotel, " that s Hail and Farewell ' is a 
novel. He is infuriated when some one suggests 
that it is a book after the manner of, say, ' The 
Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill.' . . ." 

We entered and walked up the little staircase. 

" Do you mean that the incidents are untrue ? " 

We were at the door of the concierge and there 
stood Marcel, his apron spread neatly over his 
ample paunch. It was early in the afternoon and 
the room beyond him, sometimes filled with pos- 
sibilities for customers, was empty. 
[ 185 ] 



Interrupted Conversation 

" Ah, monsieur est revenu! " he exclaimed in his 
piping voice. " C'est pour la petite Polonaise 
sans doute que monsieur revient? " 

" Oui" answered Sitgreaves, " faut-il attendre 
long temps? " 

" Mais non, monsieur, un petit moment. Elle 
habite en face. Je vais envoyer le garcon la 
chercher tout de suite. Et pour monsieur, votre 
ami? " 

" Je ne desire rien" I replied. 

Marcel bowed humbly. ..." Comme monsieur 
voudra." Then a doubt assailed him. " Peut- 
etre que la petite Polonaise vous suffira a tous les 
deux? " 

" Jamais de la vie! " I shouted, " Flute, Mer- 
cure, allez! Je suis pueeau! " 

Marcel was equal to this. " Et ta soeur? " he 
demanded as he disappeared down the staircase. 

He had put us meanwhile in the very chamber 
with the red curtains and the picture of Cupid and 
Psyche that Sitgreaves had described. Perhaps 
all the rooms were similarly decorated. I lounged 
on the bed while Sitgreaves sat on a chair and 
smoked. . . . 

I answered his last question, " No, they are 
true, but there is selection and form." 

" While other memoirs have neither selection nor 
[186] 



Interrupted Conversation 

form and usually are not altogether accurate in 
the bargain. . . ." 

" Especially Madame Melba's. . . ." 

" Especially," agreed Sitgreaves delightedly, 
" Madame Melba's." 

" Moore is really right," I went on. " He says 
that some people insist that Balzac was greater 
than Turgeniev, because the Frenchman took his 
characters from imagination, the Russian his from 
life. You will remember, however, that Edgar 
Saltus says, ' The manufacture of fiction from 
facts was begun by Balzac.' Moore's point is 
that all great writers write from observation. 
There is no other way. A character may have 
more or less resemblance to the original; it may 
be derived and bear a different name; still there 
must have been something. ... In a letter which 
Moore once wrote me stands the phrase, ' Memory 
is the mother of the Muses.' ' Hail and Farewell ' 
is just as much a work of imagination, according 
to Moore, as 4 A Nest of Noblemen ' or ' Les Illu- 
sions Perdues.' " 

" Of course," admitted Sitgreaves. " No 
writer but what has suffered from the recognition 
of his characters. Dickens got into trouble. Os- 
car Wilde is said to have done himself in ' Dorian 
Gray,' and Meredith's models for ' The Tragic 
[ 187 ] 



Interrupted Conversation 

Comedians ' and ' Diana of the Crossways ' are 
well known." 

" All Moore has done is to call his characters 
by their real names and he has reported their 
conversations as he remembered them, but, mind 
you, he has not put into the book all their conver- 
sations, or even all the people he knew at that 
period. Arthur Symons, for instance, a great 
friend of Moore's at that time, is scarcely men- 
tioned, and with reason: he has no part in the 
form of the book; its plot is not concerned with 
him. 

" All artists create only in the image of the 
things they have seen, reduced to terms of art 
through their imagination. The paintings of Mina 
Loy seem to the beholder the strange creations of 
a vagrant fancy. I remember one picture of hers 
in which an Indian girl stands poised before an 
oriental palace, the most fantastic of palaces, it 
would seem. But the artist explained to me that 
it was simply the f acade of Hagenbeck's menagerie 
in Hamburg, seen with an imaginative eye. The 
girl was a model. . . . One day on the beach at the 
Lido she saw a young man in a bathing suit lying 
stretched on the sand with his head in the lap of a 
beautiful woman. Other women surrounded the 
two. The group immediately suggested a compo- 
[ 188 ] 



Interrupted Conversation 

sition to her. She went home and painted. She 
took the young man's bathing suit off and gave 
him wings ; the women she dressed in lovely floating 
robes, and she called the picture, V Amour Dorlote 
par les Belles Dames. 

" And once I asked Frank Harris to explain to 
me the origin of his vivid story, ' Montes the Mat- 
ador.' ' It's too simple,' he said, 6 the model for 
Montes was a little Mexican greaser whom I met 
in Kansas. He was one of many in charge of 
cattle shipped up from Mexico and down from the 
States. All the white cattle men, the gringos, 
held him in great contempt. But,' continued 
Harris, speaking deliberately with his beautifully 
modulated voice, and his eyes twinkling with the 
memory of the thing, ' I soon found that the 
greaser's contempt for the gringos was immeas- 
ureably greater than their's for him. " Bah," he 
would say, " they know nothing." And it was so. 
He could go into a cattle car on a pitch dark 
night and make the bulls stand up, a feat that 
none of the white men would have attempted. I 
asked him how he did this and he told me the 
answer in three words, " I know them." He could 
go into a herd of cattle just let loose together and 
pick out their leader immediately, pick him out 
before the cattle themselves had! There was the 

[ 189 ] 



Interrupted Conversation 

origin of " Montes the Matador." He was 
named, of course, after the famous torero de- 
scribed by Gautier in his " Voyage en Espagne." 
When I was in Madrid sometime later I went to a 
number of bull-fights before I put the story to- 
gether.' ' But,' I asked Harris, ' Is it possible 
for an espada to stand in the bull ring with his 
back to the bull, during a charge, as you have 
made him do frequently in the story ? ' 'Of 
course not,' he answered me at once, smiling his 
frankly malevolent smile, ' Of course not. That 
part was put in to show how much the public will 
stand for in a work of fiction. I believe one of 
the espadas tried it some time after the book ap- 
peared and was immediately killed.' 

" Fiction, history, poetry, criticism, at their 
best, are all the same thing. When they inflame 
the imagination and stir the pulse they are iden- 
tical: all creative work. It does not matter what 
a man writes about. It matters how he writes it. 
Subject is nothing. Should we regard Velasquez 
as less important than Murillo because the former 
painted portraits of contemporaries, whom in his 
fashion he criticized, while the Spanish Bouguereau 
disguised his models as the Virgin? Walter 
Pater's description of the Monna Lisa would live 
if the picture disappeared. Indeed it has created 
[ 190 ] 



Interrupted Conversation 

a factitious interest in da Vinci's masterwork. 
Even more might be said for Huysmans's descrip- 
tion of Moreau's Salome, which actually puts the 
figures in the picture in motion 1 The critic, the 
historian at their best are creative artists as the 
writers of fiction are creative artists. Should we 
regard, for example, ' Imperial Purple ' less a work 
of creative art than ' The Rise of Silas Lap- 
ham'?" 

" I am getting your meaning more and more," 
said Sitgreaves. " And it occurs to me that per- 
haps I have been unjust in rating Moore low as 
a novelist. Perhaps I should have said that he is 
more successful in those books which depend more 
on his memory and less on his imaginative instinct. 
He cannot, after all, have known Jesus and 
Paul. . . ." 

" You are quite wrong," I said. " At least from 
his point of view. He says that he knows Paul 
better than he has ever known any one else. He 
even finds hair on Paul's chest. He can describe 
Paul, I believe, to the last mole. He knows his 
favourite colours, and whether he prefers arti- 
chokes to alligator pears. As for Christ, every- 
body professes to know Christ these days. Since 
the world has become distinctly un-Christian 
it has become comparatively easy to discuss 
[191] 



Interrupted Conversation 

Christ. He is regarded as an historical charac- 
ter, and a much more simple one than Napoleon. 
I have heard anarchists in bar-rooms talk about 
him by the hour, sometimes very graphically and 
always with a certain amount of wit. No, it is all 
the same. . . . Moore, now that he has been to 
Palestine and read the gospels, feels as well ac- 
quainted with Christ and Paul as he does with 
Edward Martyn and Yeats and Lady Gregory." 

" I must fall back on the personal then," said 
Sitgreaves, now really at bay, " and say that I am 
less moved and interested when Moore is describing 
Evelyn Innes, than when he tells of his affair with 
Doris at Orelay." 

" I am glad that you mentioned ' Evelyn Innes ' 
again," I said, " because it is in this very book 
that he is said to have painted so many of his 
friends. Ulick Dean is undoubtedly Yeats. It 
has been suggested that Arnold Dolmetsch posed 
for the portrait of Evelyn's father. Dolmetsch's 
testimony on this point goes farther. He says 
that he dictated certain passages in the 
book. . . ." 

"What is it, then? What is the difference? 
There is some difference, of that I am sure. . . ." 

" The difference is — " I began when the door 
opened and Marcel entered, the most amazingly 
[192] 



Interrupted Conversation 

comprehensive smile on his countenance. " Made- 
moiselle vous attend," he said, and he looked the 
question. " Shall I bring her in here? " 

Sitgreaves answered it immediately, " Je mens." 
And then to me, " Wait," as he vanished through 
the doorway. ... I walked to the window, drew 
aside the red curtains, and looked out into the 

fountain-splashed court below. . . . 

****** 

" What is the difference ? " 

" I suppose it is that you prefer the new Moore 
to the old Moore, the author of the later and bet- 
ter written books to the author of the earlier ones. 
■ Evelyn Innes ' was many times rewritten. 
Moore has said that he could never get it to suit 
him, but he has also said, recently, that he would 
never rewrite another book (a resolution he has 
not kept). 'Memoirs of My Dead Life' and 
' Hail and Farewell ' do not need rewriting. 
They are written to stand. ' The Brook Kerith,' 
perhaps, you will find equally to your taste. It 
will be the newest Moore. . . ." 

" You have explained to me," said Sitgreaves, 
" the difference ; it is one of development. Now 
that I think of it I don't believe that Anatole 
France could write ' The Brook Kerith.' ... It 
would be too symbolical, too cynical, in his hands. 
[193] 



Interrupted Conversation 

Moore will perhaps make it more human, by know- 
ing the characters. I wonder," he continued mus- 
ingly, as we left the room, and descended the 
stairs, " if he told you whether that hair on 
Paul's chest was red or black. . . ." 

February 1, 1915. 



[ 194 ] 



The Authoritative Work on 
American Music 



The Authoritative Work 
on American Music 



HL. MENCKEN pointed out to me re- 
cently, in his most earnest and per- 
suasive manner, that it was my duty to 
write a book about the American composers, ex- 
posing their futile pretensions and describing their 
flaccid opera, stave by stave. It was in vain that 
I urged that this would be but a sleeveless errand, 
arguing that I could not fight men of straw, that 
these our composers had no real standing in the 
concert halls, and that pushing them over would be 
an easy exercise for a child of ten. On the con- 
trary, he retorted, they belonged to the acad- 
emies ; certain people believed that they were im- 
portant; it was necessary to dislodge this belief. 
I suggested, with a not too heavily assumed hu- 
mility, that I had already done something of the 
sort in an essay entitled " The Great American 
Composer." " A good beginning," asserted Col. 
Mencken, " but not long enough. I won't be sat- 
isfied with anything less than a book." " But if I 
wrote a book about Professors Parker, Chadwick, 
Hadley, and the others I could find nothing differ- 
ent to say about them ; they are all alike. Neither 
[197] 



The Authoritative Work 

their lives nor their music offer opportunities for 
variations." "An excellent idea!" cried Major 
Mencken, enthusiastically, " Write one chapter 
and then repeat it verbatim throughout the book, 
changing only the name of the principal character. 
Then clap on a preface, explaining your reason 
for this procedure." My last protest was the 
feeblest of all : " I can't spend a year or a 
month or a week poring over the scores of these 
fellows ; I can't go to concerts to hear their music. 
I might as well go to work in a coal mine." " I'll 
do it for you ! " triumphantly checkmated General 
Mencken. " I'll read the scores and you shall 
write the book ! " And so he left me, as on a 
similar occasion the fiend, having exhibited his 
prospectus, vanished from the eyes of our Lord. 
And I returned to my home sorely troubled, finding 
that the words of the man were running about in 
my head like so many little Japanese waltzing 
mice. 

And, after much cogitation, I went to such and 
such a book case and took down a certain volume 
written by Louis Charles Elson (a very large red 
tome) and another by Rupert Hughes, to see if 
their words of praise for our weak musical brothers 
would stir me to action. I found that they did 
not. My heart action remained normal; no film 
[198] 



The Authoritative Work 

covered my eyes; foam did not issue from my 
mouth. Indeed I read, quite calmly, in Mr. 
Hughes's " American Composers " that A. J. 
Goodrich is " recognized among scholars abroad as 
one of the leading spirits of our time " ; that 
" (Henry Holden) Huss has ransacked the piano 
and pillaged almost every imaginable fabric of 
high colour. . . . The result is gorgeous and pur- 
ple " ; that " The thing we are all waiting for is 
that American grand opera, The Woman of 
Marblehead (by Louis Adolphe Coerne). It is 
predicted that it will not receive the marble 
heart " ; that " I know of no modern composer who 
has come nearer to relighting the fires that burn 
in the old gavottes and fugues and preludes (than 
Arthur Foote). His two gavottes are to me away 
the best since Bach " ; that " the song (Israfel by 
Edgar Stillman-Kelley) is in my fervent belief, a 
masterwork of absolute genius, one of the very 
greatest lyrics in the world's music " ; and in " The 
History of American Music " by Louis C. Elson 
that " Music has made even more rapid strides 
than literature among us," and that " he (George 
W. Chadwick) has reconciled the symmetrical 
(sonata) form with modern passion." But it 
was in the fourth volume of " The Art of Music," 
published by the National Society of Music, that 
[199] 



The Authoritative Work 

I found the supreme examples of this kind of 
writing. The volume was edited by Arthur Far- 
well and W. Dermot Darby. Therein I read with 
a sort of awed astonishment that one of the songs 
of Frederick Ayres " reveals a poignancy of im- 
agination and a perception and apprehension of 
beauty seldom attained by any composer." I 
learned that T. Carl Whitmer has a " spiritual 
kinship " with Arthur Shepherd, Hans Pfitzner, 
and Vincent d'Indy. His music is " psycholog- 
ically subtle and spiritually rarefied: in colour 
it corresponds to the violet end of the spectrum." 
I turned the pages until I came to the name of 
Miss Gena Branscombe : " Inexhaustible buoy- 
ancy, a superlative emotional wealth, and wholly 
singular gift of musical intuition are the qualities 
which have shaped the composer's musical person- 
ality (without much effort of the imagination we 
might say that they are the qualities that shaped 
Beethoven's musical personality). . . . Her im- 
patient melodies leap and dash with youthful life, 
while her accompaniments abound in harmonic 
hairbreadth escapes." Before he became ac- 
quainted with the later French idiom Harvey W. 
Loomis " spontaneously breathed forth the quality 
of spirit which we now recognize in a Debussy or a 
Ravel." 

[200] 



The Authoritative Work 

Curiously enough, however, these statements did 
not annoy me. I found no desire arising in me to 
deny them and doubtless, though mayhap with a 
guilty conscience, I should have ditched the un- 
dertaking, consigned it to that heap of undone 
duties, where already lie notes on a comparison of 
Andalusian mules with the mules of Liane de 
Pougy, a few scribbled memoranda for a treatise 
on the love habits of the mole, and a half-finished 
biography of the talented gentleman who signed 
his works, " Nick Carter," if my by this time quite 
roving eye had not alighted, entirely fortuitously, 
on one of the forgotten glories of my library, a 
slender volume entitled " Popular American Com- 
posers." 

I recalled how I had bought this book. Hap- 
pening into a modest second-hand bookshop on 
lower Third Avenue, maintained chiefly for the 
laudable purpose of redistributing paper novels 
of the Seaside and kindred libraries, of which, alas, 
we hear very little nowadays, I asked the pro- 
prietor if by chance he possessed any literature re- 
lating to the art of music. By way of answer, he 
retired to the very back of his little room, searched 
for a space in a litter on the floor, and then re- 
turned with a pile of nine volumes or so in his 
arms. The titles, such as " Great Violinists," 
[201] 



The Authoritative Work 

" Harmony in Thirteen Lessons," and " How to 
Sing," did not intrigue me, but in idly turning the 
pages of this " Popular American Composers " I 
came across a half-tone reproduction of a photo- 
graph of Paul Dresser, the only less celebrated 
brother of Theodore Dreiser, with a short biog- 
raphy of the composer of On the Banks of the 
Wabash. As Sir George Grove in his excellent 
dictionary neglected to mention this portentous 
name in American Art and Letters (although he 
devoted sixty-seven pages, printed in double col- 
umns, to Mendelssohn) I saw the advantage of add- 
ing the little book to my collection. The book- 
seller, when questioned, offered to relinquish the 
volume for a total of fifteen cents, and I carried 
it away with me. Once I had become more thor- 
oughly acquainted with its pages I realized that I 
would willingly have paid fifteen dollars for it. 

This book, indeed, cannot fail to delight Gen- 
eral Mencken. There is no reference in its pages 
to Edgar Stillman-Kelley, Miss Gena Brans- 
combe, Louis Adolphe Coerne, Henry Holden 
Huss, T. Carl Whitmer, Arthur Farwell, Arthur 
Foote, or A. J. Goodrich. In fact, if we over- 
look brief notices of John Philip Sousa, Harry 
von Tilzer, Paul Dresser, Charles K. Harris, and 
Hattie Starr (whom you will immediately recall as 
[202] 



The Authoritative Work 

the composer of Little Alabama Coon), the author, 
Frank L. Boyden, has not hesitated to go to the 
roots of his subject, pushing aside the college pro- 
fessors and their dictums, and has turned his at- 
tention to figures in the art life of America, from 
whom, Mencken himself, I feel sure, would not take 
a single paragraph of praise, so richly is it de- 
served. I am unfamiliar with the causes con- 
tributing to this book's comparative obscurity ; 
perhaps, indeed, they are similar to those respon- 
sible for the early failure of " Sister Carrie." 
May not we even suspect that the odium cast by 
the Doubledays on the author of that romance 
might have been actively transferred in some 
degree to a work which contained a biographical 
notice and a picture of his brother? At any rate, 
" Popular American Composers," published in 
1902, fell into undeserved oblivion and so I make 
no apology for inviting my readers to peruse its 
pages with me. 

Opening the book, then, at random, I discover on 
page 96 a biography of Lottie A. Kellow (her 
photograph graces the reverse of this page). In 
a few well-chosen words (almost indeed in " gipsy 
phrases ") Mr. Boyden gives us the salient details 
of her career. Mrs. Kellow is a resident of 
Cresco, Iowa, a church singer of note, and the 
[203] 



The Authoritative Work 

possessor of a contralto voice of great volume. 
As a composer she has to her credit " marches, 
cakewalks, schottisches, and other styles of instru- 
mental music." We are given a picture of Mrs. 
Kellow at work : " Mrs. Kellow's best efforts are 
made in the evening, and in darkness, save the 
light of the moonbeams on the keys of her piano." 
We are also told that " she is happy in her in- 
spirations and a sincere lover of music. All of 
her compositions show a decided talent and possess 
musical elements which are only to be found in 
the works of an artist. Mrs. Kellow's musical 
friends are confident of her success as a composer 
and predict for her a brilliant future." 

Let us turn to the somewhat more extensive 
biography of W. T. Mullin on Page 4 (his pho- 
tograph faces this page). Almost in the first 
line the author rewards our attention : " To him 
may be applied the simplest and grandest eulogy 
Shakespeare ever pronounced : ' He was a man.' " 
We are also informed that he was born of a cul- 
tured family, that his inherited nobility of char- 
acter has been carefully fostered by a thorough 
education, and told that one finds in him the un- 
usual combination of genius wedded to sound com- 
mon sense and practical business capacity. His 
family moved to Colorado, Texas, while he was 
[ 204 ] 



The Authoritative Work 

still a lad and here his musical talent began to 
display itself. " The inventive faculties of the 
small boy, and the innate harmony of the musi- 
cian, combined to improvise a crude instrument 
which emitted the notes of the scale. Successful 
at drawing forth a concord of sweet sounds, 
he continued to experiment upon everything 
which would emit musical vibrations. (Even 
the pigs, I take it, did not escape.) He 
consequently discovered the laws of vibrating 
chords before he had mastered the intricacies of 
the multiplication table. Yet strange as it may 
seem, his musical education was neglected. A four 
months' course in piano instruction was inter- 
rupted and then resumed for two months more. 
Upon this meagre foundation rested his subse- 
quent phenomenal progress." I pause to point 
out to the astonished and breathless reader that 
even Mozart and Schubert, infant prodigies that 
they were, received more training than this. 

I continue to quote : " At the age of thirteen 
he joined The Colorado (Texas) Cornet Band as 
a charter member. The youngest member of the 
band, he soon outstripped his comrades by virtue 
of his superior natural ability. His position was 
that of second tenor. Wearying of the monotony 
of playing, he determined to venture on solo work. 
[205] 



The Authoritative Work 

The boy felt the impetus of restless power and 
the following incident illustrates his remarkable 
originality. Taking the piano score of a favour- 
ite melody he transposed it within the compass of 
the second tenor. This feat evoked admiring ap- 
plause because of his extreme youth and untrained 
abilities. The band-master remarked that elderly 
and experienced heads could hardly have accom- 
plished this. 

" From boyhood to manhood he has remained 
with the Colorado (Texas) band as one of its most 
efficient members, composing in his leisure moments, 
marches, ragtimes, waltzes, song and dance schot- 
tisches, etc. Of his many meritorious composi- 
tions only one has so far been given to the public : 
— The West Texas Fair March, composed for 
and dedicated to the management of the West 
Texas Fair and Round-up. This institution holds 
its annual meetings at Abilene, Texas. There the 
march was played for the first time at their Oc- 
tober, 1899, meet with great success, and again 
at their September, 1900, meet by the Stockman 
band of Colorado, Texas, which has furnished 
music for the West Texas Fair during their 1899 
and 1900 meetings. Mr. Mullin's position in the 
Stockman band is that of euphonium soloist. He 
is a proficient performer upon all band instru- 
[206] 



The Authoritative Work 

merits from cornet to tuba, including slide trom- 
bone, his favourites being the baritone and the 
trombone. 

" He plays many stringed instruments, as well 
as the piano and organ. He is the proud pos- 
sessor of a genuine Stradivarius violin — ■ a family 
heirloom — which he naturally prizes beyond the 
intrinsic value. The feat of playing on several 
instruments at once presents no difficulty to him. 

" This briefly sketches Mr. Mullin's life, charac- 
ter and ability as a musician. His accompanying 
photograph reveals his superb physique. Per- 
sonally he possesses charming, agreeable manners 
and Chesterfleldan courteousness, which vastly 
contributes to his popularity. Sincere devotion 
to his art has been rewarded by that elevating 
nobility of soul, which alone can penetrate the blue 
expanse of space and revel in the music of the 
spheres." 

What more is there to say? I can only assure 
the reader that Mullin stands unique among all 
musicians, creative and interpretative, in being 
able to play the organ, many stringed instruments, 
and all the instruments in a brass band (several of 
them simultaneously; it would be interesting to 
know which and how) after studying the piano for 
six months. I sincerely hope that the mistake he 
[207] 



The Authoritative Work 

made in withholding all his compositions, save one, 
from the public, has been rectified. 

Helen Kelsey Fox, like so many of our talented 
men and women, has a European strain in her 
blood. She is a lineal descendant on her mother's 
side of a French nobleman and a German princess. 
Nevertheless she continues to reside in Vermilion, 
Ohio. She is of a " decided poetic nature and 
lives in an atmosphere of her own. She dwells in 
a world of thought peopled by the creations of an 
active and lyric mentality." She is so imbued 
with the poetic spark that, as she expresses it, she 
" speaks in rhyme half the time." 

John Z. Macdonald, strictly speaking, is not 
an American composer. He was born in Scotland 
and came to America in 1881 at the age of 21, but 
as he is one of the very few composers since Nero 
to enter public political life he well deserves a place 
in this collection. In 1890 he was elected city 
clerk of Brazil, Indiana, a position which he held 
for seven years. In 1898 he was elected treasurer 
of Clay County, Indiana. This county is demo- 
cratic " by between five and six hundred " but Mr. 
Macdonald was elected on the republican ticket 
by a majority of 133. He was the only repub- 
lican elected. Among the best known of Mr. Mac- 
donald's compositions is his famous " expansion " 
[ 208 ] 



The Authoritative Work 

song, in which he predicted the fate of Aguinaldo. 
He has autograph letters, praising this song, from 
the late President McKinley, Col. Roosevelt, Gen- 
eral Harrison, Admiral Schley, John Philip Sousa 
and other " eminent gentlemen." 

Edward Dyer, born in Washington, was the son 
of a marble cutter who " helped to erect the 
U. S. Treasury, Patent Office, and Capitol. . . . 
In the majority of his compositions there is a 
tinge of sadness which appeals to his auditors. 
. . . Mr. Dyer never descends to coarseness or 
vulgarity in his productions ; he writes pure, clean 
words, something that can be sung in the home, 
school and on the stage to refined respectable peo- 
ple." 

We learn much of the study years of Mrs. Lucy 
L. Taggart : " From earliest childhood she re- 
ceived valuable musical instruction from her 
father (Mr. Longsdon) who, coming from England 
in 1835, purchased the first piano that came to 
Chicago, an elegant hand-carved instrument that 
is still treasured in the old home." Later " she 
studied under Prof. C. E. Brown, of Owego, N. Y., 
Prof. Heimburger, of San Francisco and Herr 
Chas, Goffrie. Mrs. Taggart was also for five 
years a pupil of Senor Arevalo, the famous guitar 
soloist of Los Angeles. . . . Mrs. Taggart has in 
[ 209 ] 



The Authoritative Work 

preparation (1902) Methought He Touched the 
Strings, an idyl for piano in memory of the late 
Senor M. S. Arevalo." 

David Weidley, born in Philadelphia, is the com- 
poser of the following songs, Old Spooney Spoop- 
palay, Jennie Ree, Autumn Leaves, Hannah Glue, 
and Uncle Reuben and Aunt Lucinda. " He has 
done much to create and elevate a taste for music 
in the community where he resides and where he is 
known as ' Dave.' Even the little children call 
him ' Dave ' as freely and innocently as those who 
have known him for years, and there can be no 
greater compliment for any man than that he is 
known and loved by the children. Mr. Weidley is 
by profession a sheet metal worker. He is a P. G. 
of the I. O. 0. F., and a P. C. in the Knights of 
Pythias. He is not identified with any church, but 
loves and serves his fellow-men." 

In the biography of Delmer G. Palmer we are 
assured that " Versatility is a trait with which 
musical composers are not excessively burdened. 
There are few performers who can include The 
Moonlight Sonata and Schubert's Serenade with 
selections from The Merry-go-round, and do jus- 
tice to the expression of each, much less would 
such adaptability be looked for among composers. 
As most rules have exceptions, in this there is one 
[210] 



The Authoritative Work 

who stands in a class occupied by no one else, Mr. 
Delmer G. Palmer, the ' Green Mountain Com- 
poser,' who at present resides in Kansas City. 

" As recently as 1899 Mr. Palmer wrote a song 
in the popular ' ragtime,' My Sweetheart is a Mid- 
night Coon and almost in the same breath also 
wrote the heavy sacred solo, Christ m Gethsemane. 
The first is of the usual light order characteristic 
of this class of music. The latter is as far re- 
moved to the contrary as is comedy from tragedy. 
The ' coon ' song entered the bubbling effervescing 
cauldron of what is termed ' ragtime ' music 
among the multitudinous others, and soon was seen 
peeping through at the surface among the lightest 
and most catchy. . . . The sacred solo found its 
level among the heavier in its class, and if the term 
may be here applied, it was also a hit." 

S. Duncan Baker, born August 25, 1855, still 
lives (1902) in the old family residence at Nat- 
chez, Miss. " In this house is located the den 
where he has spent many hours with his collection 
of banjos and pictures and in writing for and 
playing on the instrument which he adopted as a 
favourite during its dark days (about 1871)." 
We are told that he composed an " artistic banjo 
solo," entitled, Memories of Farland. " Had this 
production or its companion piece, Thoughts of 
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The Authoritative Work 

the Cadenza, been written by an old master for 
some other instrument and later have been adapted 
by a modern composer to the banjo, either or both 
of them would have been pronounced classic, bar- 
ring some slight defects in form." 

I cannot stop to quote from the delightful ac- 
counts offered us of the lives and works of Albert 
Matson, George D. Tufts, D. O. Loy, Lavinia 
Pascoe Oblad, and forty or fifty other American 
singers, but it seems to me that I have done 
enough, Mencken, to prove to you that the great 
book on American music has been written. With- 
out one single mention of the names of Horatio 
Parker, George W. Chadwick, Frederick Converse, 
or Henry Hadley, by a transference of the em- 
phasis to the place where it belongs, the author 
of this undying book has answered your prayer. 

December 11, 1917. 



[ 212 ] 



Old Days and New 



Old Days and New 



SOME toothless old sentimentalist or other 
periodically sets up a melancholy howl for 
" the good old days of comic opera," what- 
ever or whenever they were. Perhaps none of us, 
once past forty, is guiltless in this respect. Noth- 
ing, not even the smell of an apple-blossom from 
the old homestead, the sight of a daguerreotype of 
a miss one kissed at the age of ten, or a taste of a 
piece of the kind of pie that " mother used to 
make " so arouses the sensibility of a man of mid- 
dle age as the memory of some musical show which 
he saw in his budding manhood. That is why re- 
vivals of these venerable institutions are fre- 
quently projected and, some of them, very suc- 
cessfully accomplished. When a manager revives 
an old drama he must appeal to the interest of his 
audience ; it may not be the identical interest which 
held the original spectators of the piece spell- 
bound, but, none the less, it must be an interest. 
When a manager revives an old musical comedy he 
appeals directly to sentiment. 

Of course, the exact date of the good old days 
is a variable quantity. I have known a vain re- 
gretter to turn no further back than to the nights 
[215] 



Old Days and New 

of The Merry Widow, The Waltz Dream, The 
Chocolate Soldier, The Girl m the Train, and The 
Dollar Prmcess, in other words to the Viennese 
renaissance; another, in using the phrase, is sub- 
consciously conjuring up pictures of La Belle 
Helene, Orphee aux Enfers, or La Fille de Madame 
Angot, good fodder for memory to feed on here; 
a third will instinctively revert to the Johann 
Strauss operetta period, the era of The Queen's 
Lace Handkerchief and Die Fledermaus; a fourth 
cries, " Give us Gilbert and Sullivan ! " A fifth, 
when his ideas are chased to their lair, will rhapso- 
dize endlessly over the charms of the London 
Gaiety when The Geisha, The Country Girl, and 
The Circus Girl were in favour; a sixth, it seems, 
finds his pleasure in Americana, Robin Hood, 
Wang, The Babes m Toyland, and El Capi- 
tan; a seventh becomes maudlin to the most 
utter degree when you mention Les Cloches de 
Corneville, or La Mascotte, products of a decadent 
stage in the history of French opera-bouffe. Not 
long ago I heard a man speak of the cadet operas 
in Boston (did a man named Barnet write them?) 
as the last of the great musical pieces ; and every 
one of you who reads this essay will have a 
brother, or a son, or a friend who went to see 
Sybil forty-three times and The Girl from Utah 
[216] 



Old Days and New 

seventy-six. Twenty years from now, as he sits 
before the open fire, the mere mention of They 
Wouldn't Believe Me will cause the tears to course 
down his cheeks as he pats the pate of his infant 
son or daughter and weepingly describes the never- 
to-be-forgotten fascination of Julia Sanderson, the 
(in the then days) unattainable agility of Donald 
Brian. 

In no other form of theatrical entertainment is 
the appeal to softness so direct. The man who 
attends a performance of a musical farce goes in a 
good mood, usually with a couple of friends, or 
possibly with the girl. If he has dined well and 
his digestion is in working order and he is young 
enough, the spell of the lights and the music is 
irresistible to his receptive and impressionable 
nature. There are those young men, of course, 
who are constant attendants because of the alto- 
gether too wonderful hair of the third girl from 
the right in the front row. Others succumb to the 
dental perfection of the prima donna or to the 
shapely legs of the soubrette. All of us, I am 
almost proud to admit, at some time or other, are 
subject to the contagion. I well remember the 
year in which I considered myself as a possible 
suitor for the hand of Delia Fox. Photographs 
and posters of this deity adorned my walls. I was 
[217] 



Old Days and New 

an assiduous collector of newspaper clippings re- 
ferring to her profoundly interesting activities, al- 
though my sophistication had not reached the 
stage where I might appeal to Romeike for as- 
sistance. The mere mention of Miss Fox's name 
was sufficient cause to make me blush profusely. 
Eventually my father was forced to take steps in 
the matter when I began, in a valiant effort to 
summon up the spirit of the lady's presence, to dis- 
turb the early morning air with vocal assaults on 
She Was a Daisy, which, you will surely remem- 
ber, was the musical gem of The Little Trooper. 
Here are the words of the refrain : 

" She was a daisy, daisy, daisy ! 
Driving me crazy, crazy, crazy ! 
Helen of Troy and Venus were to her cross-eyed 

crones ! 
She was dimpled and rosy, rosy, rosy ! 
Sweet as a posy, posy, posy! 
How I doted upon her, my Ann Jane Jones ! " 

You will admit, I think, at first glance, the 
superior literary quality of these lines ; you will 
perceive at once to what immeasurably higher class 
of art they belong than the lyrics that librettists 
forge for us today. 

[218] 



Old Days and New 

Wall Street broker, poet, green grocer, soldier, 
banker, lawyer, whatever you are, confess the facts 
to yourself: you were once as I. You have suf- 
fered the same feelings that I suffered. Perhaps 
with you it was not Delia Fox. . . . Who then? 
Did saucy Marie Jansen awaken your admiration? 
Was pert Lulu Glaser the object of your secret 
but persistent attention? How many times did 
you go to see Marie Tempest in The Fencing Mas- 
ter, or Alice Nielsen in The Serenade? Was Vir- 
ginia Earle in The Circus Girl the idol of your 
youth or was it Mabel Barrison in The Babes in 
Toylandf Theresa Vaughn in H9%, May Yohe in 
The Lady Slavey, Hilda Hollins in The Magic 
Kiss, or Nancy Mcintosh in His Excellency? 
Madge Lessing in Jack and the Beanstalk, Edna 
May in The Belle of New York, Phyllis Rankin in 
The Rounders, or Gertrude Quinlan in King Dodo? 

What do you whistle in your bathtub when you 
are in a reminiscent mood? Is it The Typical 
Tune of Zanzibar, or Baby, Baby, Dance My Dar- 
ling Baby, or Starlight, Starbright, or Tell Me, 
Pretty Maiden, or A Simple Little Strmg, or 
J'aime les MUit aires (if you whistle this, ten to 
one your next door neighbour thinks you have been 
to an orchestra concert and heard Beethoven's 
Seventh Symphony), or Sister Mary Jane's Top 
[ 219 ] 



Old Days and New 

Note, or A Wandering Minstrel I, or See How It 
Sparkles, or the Lullaby from Ermmie, which Pau- 
line Hall used to sing as if she herself 
were asleep, and which Emma Abbott in- 
terpolated in The Mikado, or A Pretty Girl, 
A Summer Night, or the Policeman's Chorus 
from The Pirates of Penzance, or The Soldiers m 
the Park, or My Angelme, or the Letter Song from 
The Chocolate Soldier, or Fm Little Buttercup, 
or the Gobble Song from The Mascot, or the Anna 
Song from Nanon, or the march from Fatinitza, 
or Fm All the Way from Gay Paree, or Love 
Comes Like a Summer Sigh, or In the North Sea 
Lived a Whale, or Jusqula, or The Harmless Lit- 
tle Girlie With the Downcast Eyes, or They All 
Follow Me, or The Amorous Goldfish, or Don't Be 
Cross, or Slumber On, My Little Gypsy Sweet- 
heart, or Good-bye Flo, or La Legende de la Mere 
Angot, or My Alamo Love? 

There is a very subtle and fragrant charm about 
these old recollections which the sight or sound of a 
score, a view of an old photograph of Lillian Rus- 
sell or Judic, or a dip in the Theatre Complet of 
Meilhac and Halevy will reawaken. But it is 
only at a revival of one of our old favourites that 
we can really bathe in sentimentality, drink in 
draughts of joy from the past, allow memory full 
[220] 



Old Days and New 

sway. You whose hair is turning white will be in 
Row A, Seat No. 1 for the first performance of a 
revival of Robin Hood. You will not hear Edwin 
Hoff in his original role; Jessie Bartlett Davis is 
dead and, alas, Henry Clay Barnabee is no longer 
on the boards, but the newcomers, possibly, are re- 
spectable substitutes and the airs and lines remain. 
You can walk about in the lobby and say proudly 
that you attended the first performance of the 
opera ever so long ago when operettas had tune 
and reason. " Yes sir, there were plots in those 
days, and composers, and the singers could act. 
Times have certainly changed, sir. Come to the 
corner and have a Manhattan. . . . There were 
no cocktails in those days. . . . There is no singer 
like Mrs. Davis today ! " 

Well the poor souls who cannot feel tenderly 
about a past they have not yet experienced have 
their recompenses. For one thing I am certain 
that the revivals of the Gilbert and Sullivan 
operettas to which De Wolf Hopper devoted his 
best talents were better, in many respects, than 
the original London productions ; just as I am 
equally certain that the representations of Aida 
at the Metropolitan Opera House are way ahead 
of the original performance of that work given 
at Cairo before the Khedive of Egypt. 
[ 221 ] 



Old Days and New 

Then there is the musical revue, a form which 
we have borrowed from the French, but which 
we have vastly improved upon and into which 
we have poured some of our most national feel- 
ing and expression. The interpretation of these 
frivolities is a new art. Gaby Deslys may be 
only half a loaf compared to Marie Jansen, but 
I am sure that Elsie Janis is more than three- 
quarters. Frank Tinney and Al Jolson can, in 
their humble way, efface memories of Digby Bell 
and Dan Daly. Adele Rowland and Marie 
Dressier have their points (and curves). Irving 
Berlin, Louis A. Hirsch, and Jerome Kern are 
not to be sniffed at. Neither is P. G. Wodehouse. 
Harry B. Smith we have always with us : he is 
the Sarah Bernhardt of librettists. 

Joseph Urban has wrought a revolution in 
stage settings for this form of entertainment. 
Louis Sherwin has offered us convincing evidence 
to support his theory that the new staging in 
America is coming to us by way of the revue and 
not through the serious drama. Melville Ellis, 
Lady Duff-Gordon, and Paul Poiret have done 
their bit for the dresses. In fact, my dear young 
man — who are reading this article — you will 
feel just as tenderly in twenty years about the 
Follies of 1917 as your father does now about 
[ 222 ] 



Old Days and New 

Wang. Only, and this is a very big ONLY, the 
Follies of 1917 y depending as it does entirely on 
topical subjects and dimpled knees, cannot be 
revived. Fervid and enlivening as its immediate 
impression may be it cannot be lasting. You 
can never recapture the thrills of this summer by 
sitting in Row A, Seat No. 1 at any 1937 reprise. 
There can never be anything of the sort. The 
revue, like the firefly, is for a night only. We 
take it in with the daily papers . . . and the next 
season, already old-fashioned, it goes forth to 
show Grinnell and Davenport how Mile. Manhat- 
tan deported herself the year before. 

So if the youth of these days chooses to be sen- 
timental in the years to come over the good old 
days of Urban scenery and Olive Thomas, the Bal- 
loon Girls of the Midnight Frolic and the chorus of 
the Winter Garden, he will be obliged to give way 
to the mood at home in front of the fire, see the pic- 
tures in the smoke, and hear the tunes in the drop- 
ping of the coals. Which is perhaps as it should 
be. For in 1937 the youth of that epoch can sit 
in Row A, Seat No. 1 himself and not be ousted 
from his place by a sentimental gentleman of mid- 
dle age who longs to hear Poor Butterfly again. 

April 25, 1917. 

[223] 



T,wo Young American Playwrights 

" Gautier had a theory to the effect that to be a 
member of the Academy was simply and solely a 
matter of predestination. ' There is no need to do 
anything/ he would say, ' and so far as the writing of 
books is concerned that is entirely useless. A man is 
born an Academician as he is born a bishop or a 
cook. He can abuse the Academy in a dozen pam- 
phlets if it amuses him t and be elected all the same; 
but if he is not predestined, three hundred volumes 
and ten masterpieces, recognized as such by the genu- 
flections of an adoring universe, will not aid him to 
open its doors.' Evidently Balzac was not predes- 
tined but then neither was Moliere, and there must 
have been some consolation for him in that." 

Edgar Saltus. 



Two American Playwrights 



IN the newspaper reports relating to the death 
of Auguste Rodin I read with some astonish- 
ment that if the venerable sculptor, who lacked 
three years of being eighty when he died, had lived 
two weeks longer he would have been admitted to 
the French Academy ! In other words, the great- 
est stone-poet since Michael Angelo, internation- 
ally famous and powerful, the most striking artist 
figure, indeed, of the last half century, was to be 
permitted, in the extremity of old age, to inscribe 
his name on a scroll, which bore the signatures of 
many inoffensive nobodies. I could not have been 
more amused if the newspapers, in publishing the 
obituary notices of John Jacob Astor, had an- 
nounced that if the millionaire had not perished 
in the sinking of the Titanic, his chances of being 
invited to j oin the Elks were good ; or if " Va- 
riety " or some other tradespaper of the music 
halls, had proclaimed, just before Sarah Bern- 
hardt's debut at the Palace Theatre, that if her 
appearances there were successful she might expect 
an invitation to membership in the White Rats. 
. . . These hypothetical instances would seem 
ridiculous . . . but they are not. The Rodin 
[ W] 



Two American Playwrights 

case puts a by no means seldom-recurring phenom- 
enon in the centre of the stage under a calcium 
light. The ironclad dreadnaughts of the aca- 
demic world, the reactionary artists, the dry-as- 
dust lecturers are constantly ignoring the most 
vital, the most real, the most important artists 
while they sing polyphonic, antiphonal, Palestri- 
nian motets in praise of men who have learned to 
imitate comfortably and efficiently the work of 
their predecessors. 

If there are other contemporary French sculp- 
tors than Rodin their names elude me at the 
moment; yet I have no doubt that some ten or 
fifteen of these hackmen have their names embla- 
zoned in the books of all the so-called " honour " 
societies in Paris. It is a comfort, on the whole, 
to realize that America is not the only country 
in which such things happen. As a matter of fact, 
they happen nowhere more often than in France. 

If some one should ask you suddenly for a list 
of the important playwrights of France today, 
what names would you let roll off your tongue, 
primed by the best punditic and docile French 
critics? Henry Bataille, Paul Hervieu, and 
Henry Bernstein. Possibly Rostand. Don't 
[ 228 ] 



Two American Playwrights 

deny this ; you know it is true, unless it happens 
you have been doing some thinking for yourself. 
For even in the works of Remy de Gourmont (to 
be sure this very clairvoyant mind did not often 
occupy itself with dramatic literature) you will 
find little or nothing relating to Octave Mirbeau 
and Georges Feydeau. True, Mirbeau did not do 
his best work in the theatre. That stinging, cyn- 
ical attack on the courts of Justice (?) of France 
(nay, the world!), " Le Jardin de Supplice " is 
not a play and it is probably Mirbeau's master- 
piece and the best piece of critical fiction written in 
France (or anywhere else) in the last fifty years. 
However Mirbeau shook the pillars of society even 
in the playhouse. Le Foyer was hissed repeatedly 
at the Theatre Francais. Night after night the 
proceedings ended in the ejection and arrest of 
forty or fifty spectators. Even to a mere out- 
sider, an idle bystander of the boulevards, this 
complete exposure of the social, moral, and polit- 
ical hypocricies of a nation seemed exceptionally 
brutal. Le Foyer and " Le Jardin " could only 
have been written by a man passionately devoted 
to the human ideal (" each as she may," as Ger- 
trude Stein so beautifully puts it). Les Affaires 
sont les Affaires is pure theatre, perhaps, but it 
[ 229 ] 



Two American Playwrights 

might be considered the best play produced in 
France between Becque's La Parisierme and 
Brieux's Les Harvnetons. 

It is not surprising, on the whole, to find the 
critical tribe turning for relief from this some- 
what unpleasant display of Gallic closet skeletons 
to the discreet exhibition of a few carefully chosen 
bones in the plays of Bernstein and Bataille, direct 
descendants of Scribe, Sardou, et Cie, but I may 
be permitted to indulge in a slight snicker of polite 
amazement when I discover these gentlemen apply- 
ing their fingers to their noses in no very pretty- 
meaning gesture, directed at a grandson of 
Moliere. For such is Georges Feydeau. His 
method is not that of the Seventeenth Century mas- 
ter, nor yet that of Mirbeau; nevertheless, aside 
from these two figures, Beaumarchais, Marivaux, 
Becque, Brieux at his best, and Maurice Donnay 
occasionally, there has not been a single writer in 
the history of the French theatre so inevitably au 
courant with human nature. His form is frankly 
farcical and his plays are so funny, so enjoyable 
merely as good shows that it seems a pity to raise 
an obelisk in the playwright's honour, and yet the 
fact remains that he understands the political, 
social, domestic, amorous, even cloacal conditions 
of the French better than any of his contem- 
[230] 



Two American Playwrights 

poraries, always excepting the aforementioned 
Mirbeau. In On Purge Bebe he has written 
saucy variations on a theme which Rabelais, Boc- 
caccio, George Moore, and Moliere in collabora- 
tion would have found difficult to handle. It is 
as successful an experiment in bravado and bra- 
vura as Mr. Henry James's " The Turn of the 
Screw." And he has accomplished this .feat with 
nimbleness, variety, authority, even (granting the 
subject) delicacy. Seeing it for the first time you 
will be so submerged in gales of uncontrollable 
laughter that you will perhaps not recognize at 
once how every line reveals character, how every 
situation springs from the foibles of human na- 
ture. Indeed in this one-act farce Feydeau, with 
about as much trouble as Zeus took in transform- 
ing his godship into the semblance of a swan, has 
given you a well-rounded picture of middle-class 
life in France with its external and internal im- 
plications. . . . And how he understands the 
buoyant French grue, unself conscious and undis- 
mayed in any situation. I sometimes think that 
Occupe-toi d'Amelie is the most satisfactory play 
I have ever seen ; it is certainly the most delight- 
ful. I do not think you can see it in Paris again. 
The Nouveautes, where it was presented for over 
a year, has been torn down; an English transia- 
[231] 



Two American Playwrights 

tion would be an insult to Feydeau; nor will you 
find essays about it in the yellow volumes in which 
the French critics tenderly embalm their feuille- 
tons; nor do I think Arthur Symons or George 
Moore, those indefatigable diggers in Parisian 
graveyards, have discovered it for their English 
readers. Reading the play is to miss half its 
pleasure ; so you must take my word in the matter 
unless you have been lucky enough to see it your- 
self, in which case ten to one you will agree with 
me that one such play is worth a kettleful of 
boiled-over drama like Le Voleur, Le Secret, Sam- 
son, La Vierge Folle, et cetera, et cetera. In the 
pieces I have mentioned Feydeau, in represen- 
tation, had the priceless assistance of a great comic 
artist, Armande Cassive. If we are to take Mr. 
Symons's assurance in regard to de Pachmann 
that he is the world's greatest pianist because he 
does one thing more perfectly than any one else, 
by a train of similar reasoning we might con- 
fidently assert that Mile. Cassive is the world's 
greatest actress. 

When you ask a Frenchman to explain why he 
does not like Mirbeau (and you will find that 
Frenchmen invariably do not like him) he will 
shrug his shoulders and begin to tell you that Mir- 
beau was not good to his mother, or that he drank 
[232] 



Two American Playwrights 

to excess, or that he did not wear a red, white, and 
blue coat on the Fourteenth of July, or that he 
did not stand for' the French spirit as exemplified 
in the eating of snails on Christmas. In other 
words, he will immediately place himself in a posi- 
tion in which you may be excused for regarding 
him as a person whose opinion is worth nothing, 
whereas his ratiocinatory powers on subjects with 
which he is more in sympathy may be excellent. I 
know why he does not like Mirbeau. Mirbeau is 
the reason. In his life he was not accustomed to 
making compromises nor was he accustomed to 
making friends (which comes after all to the same 
thing). He did what he pleased, said what he 
pleased, wrote what he pleased. His armorial 
bearings might have been a cat upsetting a cream 
jug with the motto, " Je men fous." The author 
of " Le Jardin de Supplice " would not be in high 
favour anywhere ; nevertheless I would willingly 
relinquish any claims I might have to future popu- 
larity for the privilege of having been permitted 
to sign this book. 

Feydeau is distinctly another story ; his plays 
are more successful than any others given in Paris. 
They are so amusing that even while he is pointing 
the finger at your own particular method of living 
you are laughing so hard that you haven't time 
[233] 



Two American Playwrights 

to see the application. ... So the French critics 
have set him down as another popular figure, only 
a nobody born to entertain the boulevards, just 
as the American critics regard the performances 
of Irving Berlin with a steely supercilious imper- 
vious eye. The Viennese scorned Mozart because 
he entertained them. " A gay population," wrote 
the late John F. Runciman, " always a heartless 
master, holds none in such contempt as the serv- 
ants who provide it with amusement." 

The same condition has prevailed in England 
until recently. A few seasons ago you might have 
found the critics pouring out their glad songs 
about Arthur Wing Pinero and Henry Arthur 
Jones. Bernard Shaw has, in a measure, restored 
the balance to the British theatre. He is not only 
a brilliant playwright; he is a brilliant critic as 
well. Foreseeing the fate of the under man in 
such a struggle he became his own literary huck- 
ster and by outcriticizing the other critics he easily 
established himself as the first English (or Irish) 
playwright. When he thus rose to the top, by 
dint of his own exertions, he had strength enough 
to carry along with him a number of other im- 
portant authors. As a consequence we may re- 
gard the Pinero incident closed and in ten years 
his theatre will be considered as old-fashioned and 
[ 234 ] 



Two American Playwrights 

as inadept as that of Robertson or Bulwer- 
Lytton. 

Having no Shaw in America, no man who can 
write brilliant prefaces and essays about his own 
plays until the man in the street is obliged per- 
force to regard them as literature, we find our- 
selves in the condition of benighted France. Dul- 
ness is mistaken for literary flavour; the injection 
of a little learning, of a little poetry (so-called) 
into a theatrical hackpiece, is the signal for a good 
deal of enthusiasm on the part of the journalists 
(there are two brilliant exceptions). Which of 
our playwrights are taken seriously by the pun- 
dits? Augustus Thomas and Percy MacKaye: 
Thomas the dean, and MacKaye the poet laureate. 
I have no intention of wrenching the laurel 
wreathes from these august brows. Let them re- 
main. Each of these gentlemen has a long and 
honourable career in the 'theatre behind him, from 
which he should be allowed to reap what financial 
and honourary rewards he may be able. But I 
would not add one leaf to these wreathes, nor one 
crotchet to the songs of praise which vibrate 
around them. I turn aside from their plays in 
the theatre and in the library as I turn aside from 
the fictions of Pierre de Coulevain and Arnold Ben- 
nett. 

[235] 



Two American Playwrights 

I love to fashion wreathes of my own and if two 
young men will now step forward to the lecturer's 
bench I will take delight in crowning them with 
my own hands. Will the young man at the back 
of the hall please page Avery Hopwood and Philip 
Moeller? . . . No response! They seem to have 
retreated modestly into the night. Nevertheless 
they shall not escape me ! 

I speak of Mr. Hopwood first because he has 
been writing for our theatre for a longer period 
than has Mr. Moeller, and because his position, 
such as it is, is assured. Like Feydeau in France 
he has a large popular following; he has probably 
made more money in a few years than Mr. Thomas 
has made during his whole lifetime and the man- 
agers are always after him to furnish them with 
more plays with which to fill their theatres. For 
his plays do fill the theatres. Fair and Warmer, 
Nobody's Widow, Clothes, and Seven Days, would 
be included in any list of the successful pieces pro- 
duced in New York within the past ten years. 
Two of these pieces would be near the very top 
of such a list. An utterly absurd allotment of 
actors is sufficient to explain the failures of Sadie 
Love and Our Little Wife and it might be well if 
some one should attempt a revival of one of his 
three serious plays, This Woman and This Man, 
[236] 



Two American Playwrights 

in which Carlotta Nillson appeared for a brief 
space. 

This author, mainly through the beneficent 
offices of a gift of supernal charm, contrives to do 
in English very much what Feydeau does in French. 
It is his contention that you can smite the Puri- 
tans, even in the American theatre, squarely on 
the cheek, provided you are sagacious in your 
choice of weapon. In Fair and Warmer he pro- 
vokes the most boisterous and at the same time the 
most innocent laughter with a scene which might 
have been made insupportably vulgar. A perfectly 
respectable young married woman gets very drunk 
with the equally respectable husband of one of 
her friends. The scene is the mainstay, the raison 
d'etre, of the play, and it furnishes the material 
for the better part of one act ; yet young and old, 
rich and poor, philistine and superman alike, de- 
light in it. To make such a situation irresistible 
and universal in its appeal is, it seems to me, un- 
doubtedly the work of genius. What might, in- 
deed should, have been disgusting, was not only in 
intention but in performance very funny. Let 
those who do not appreciate the virtuosity of this 
undertaking attempt to write as successful a scene 
in a similar vein. Even if they are able to do so, 
and I do not for a moment believe that there is 
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Two American Playwrights 

another dramatic author in America who can, they 
will be the first to grant the difficulty of the 
achievement. With an apparently inexhaustible 
fund of fantasy and wit Mr. Hopwood passes his 
wand over certain phases of so-called smart life, 
almost always with the happiest results. With a 
complete realization of the independence of his 
medium he often ignores the realistic conventions 
and the traditional technique of the stage, but his 
touch is so light and joyous, his wit so free from 
pose, that he rarely fails to establish his effect. 
His pen has seldom faltered. Occasionally, how- 
ever, the heavy hand of an uncomprehending stage 
director or of an aggressive actor has played 
havoc with the delicate texture of his fabric. 
There is no need here for the use of hammer or 
trowel; if an actress must seek aid in implements, 
let her rather rely on a soft brush, a lacy handker- 
chief, or a sparkling spangled fan. 

Philip Moeller has achieved distinction in an- 
other field, that of elegant burlesque, of sublimated 
caricature. His stage men and women are as 
adroitly distorted (the better to expose their 
comic possibilities) as the drawings of Max Beer- 
bohm. Beginning with the Bible and the Odyssey 
(Helena's Husband and Sisters of Susannah for 
the Washington Square Players) he has at length, 
[238] 



Two American Playwrights 

by way of Shakespeare and Bacon (The Road- 
house in Arden) arrived at the Romantic Period 
in French literature and in Madame Sand, his first 
three-act play, he has established himself at once 
as a dangerous rival of the authors of Ccesar and 
Cleopatra and The Importance of Being Earnest, 
both plays in the same genre as Mr. Moeller's 
latest contribution to the stage. The author has 
thrown a very high light on the sentimental ad- 
ventures of the writing lady of the early Nineteenth 
Century, has indeed advised us and convinced us 
that they were somewhat ridiculous. So they must 
have appeared even to her contemporaries, how- 
ever seriously George took herself, her romances, 
her passions, her petty tragedies. A less adult, a 
less seriously trained mind might have fallen into 
the error of making a sentimental play out of 
George's affairs with Alfred de Musset, Dr. Pa- 
gello, and Chopin (Mr. Moeller contents himself 
with these three passions, selected from the some- 
what more extensive list offered to us by history). 
Such an author would doubtless have written 
Great Catherine in the style of Disraeli and Andro- 
cles and the Lion after the manner of Ben Hurl 
Whether love itself is always a comic subject, as 
Bernard Shaw would have us believe, is a matter 
for dispute, but there can be no alternative opinion 
[239] 



Two American Playwrights 

about the loves of George Sand. A rehearsal of 
them offers only laughter to any one but a senti- 
mental school girl. 

The piece is conceived on a true literary level; 
it abounds in wit, in fantasy, in delightful sit- 
uations, but there is nothing precious about its 
progress. Mr. Moeller has carefully avoided the 
traps expressly laid for writers of such plays. 
For example, the enj oyment of Madame Sand is in 
no way dependent upon a knowledge of the books 
of that authoress, De Musset, and Heine, nor yet 
upon an acquaintance with the music of Liszt and 
Chopin. Such matters are pleasantly and lightly 
referred to when they seem pertinent, but no in- 
sistence is laid upon them. Occasionally our au- 
thor has appropriated some phrase originally 
spoken or written by one of the real characters, 
but for that he can scarcely be blamed. Indeed, 
when one takes into consideration the wealth of 
such material which lay in books waiting for him, 
it is surprising that he did not take more ad- 
vantage of it. In the main he has relied on his 
own cleverness to delight our ears for two hours 
with brilliant conversation. 

There is, it should be noted, in conclusion, noth- 
ing essentially American about either of these 
young authors. Both Mr. Hopwood and Mr. 
[ MO ] 



Two American Playwrights 

Moeller might have written for the foreign stage. 
Several of Mr. Hopwood's pieces, indeed, have al- 
ready been transported to foreign climes and there 
seems every reason for belief that Mr. Moeller's 
comedy will meet a similarly happy fate. 

November 29, 1917. 



[£41] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

" AW eta di settanta 
Non si ama, ne si cant a." 

Italian proverb. 



De Senectute Cantorum 



I 



6 i "J" AM not sure," writes Arthur S jmons in his 
admirable essay on Sarah Bernhardt, " that 
the best moment to study an artist is not 
the moment of what is called decadence. The 
first energy of inspiration is gone; what remains 
is the method, the mechanism, and it is that which 
alone one can study, as one can study the mechan- 
ism of the body, not the principle of life itself. 
What is done mechanically, after the heat of the 
blood has cooled, and the divine accidents have 
ceased to happen, is precisely all that was con- 
sciously skilful in the performance of an art. To 
see all this mechanism left bare, as the form of a 
skeleton is left bare when age thins the flesh upon 
it is to learn more easily all that is to be learnt of 
structure, the art which not art but nature has 
hitherto concealed with its merciful covering." 

Mr. Symons, of course, had an actress in mind, 
but his argument can be applied to singers as well, 
although it is safest to remember that much of 
the true beauty of the human voice inevitably de- 
parts with the youth of its owner. Still style in 
singing is not noticeably affected by age and an 
artist who possesses or who has acquired this 
[ 245 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

quality very often can afford to make lewd ges- 
tures at Father Time. If good singing depended 
upon a full and sensuous tone, such artists as Ron- 
coni, Victor Maurel, Max Heinrich, Ludwig 
Wiillner, and Maurice Renaud would never have 
had any careers at all. It is obvious that any 
true estimate of their contribution to the lyric 
stage would put the chief emphasis on style, and 
this is usually the explanation for extended suc- 
cess on the opera or concert stage, although occa- 
sionally an extraordinary and exceptional singer 
may continue to give pleasure to her auditors, de- 
spite the fact that she has left middle age behind 
her, by the mere lovely quality of the tone she 
produces. 

In the history of opera there may be found the 
names of many singers who have maintained their 
popularity and, indeed, a good deal of their art, 
long past fifty, and there is recorded at least one 
instance in which a singer, after a long absence 
from the theatre, returned to the scene of her 
earlier triumphs with her powers unimpaired, even 
augmented. I refer, of course, to Henrietta Son- 
tag, born in 1805, who retired from the stage of 
the King's Theatre in London in 1830 in her 
twenty-fifth year and who returned twenty years 
later in 1849. She had, in the meantime, become 
[ 246 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

the Countess Rossi, but although she had aban- 
doned the stage her reappearance proved that she 
had not remained idle during her period of retire- 
ment. For she was one of those artists in whom 
early " inspiration " counted for little and 
" method " for much. She was, indeed, a mistress 
of style. She came back to the public in Lmda 
di Chaminoux and H. F. Chorley ( " Thirty Years' 
Musical Recollections") tells us that "all went 
wondrously well. No magic could restore to her 
voice an upper note or two which Time had taken ; 
but the skill, grace, and precision with which she 
turned to account every atom of power she still 
possessed, — the incomparable steadiness with 
which she wrought out her composer's intentions 

— she carried through the part, from first to last, 
without the slightest failure, or sign of weariness 

— seemed a triumph. She was greeted — as she 
deserved to be — as a beloved old friend come 
home again in the late sunnier days. 

" But it was not at the moment of Madame 
Sontag's reappearance that we could advert to all 
the difficulty which added to the honour of its 
success. — She came back under musical conditions 
entirely changed since she left the stage — to 
an orchestra far stronger than that which had 
supported her voice when it was younger; and to 
[ 247 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

a new world of operas. — Into this she ventured 
with an intrepid industry not to be overpraised — 
with every new part enhancing the respect of 
every real lover of music. — During the short pe- 
riod of these new performances at Her Majesty's 
Theatre, which was not equivalent to two com- 
plete Opera seasons, not merely did Madame Son- 
tag go through the range of her old characters — 
Susanna, Rosina, Desdemona, Donna Anna, and 
the like — but she presented herself in seven or 
eight operas which had not existed when she left 
the stage — Bellini's Sonnambvla, Donizetti's 
Linda, La Figlia del Reggvmento, Don Pasquale; 
Le Tre Nozze, of Signor Alary, La Tempesta, by 
M. Halevy — the last two works involving what 
the French call ' creation,' otherwise the produc- 
tion of a part never before represented. — In one 
of the favourite characters of her predecessor, the 
elder artist beat the younger one hollow. — This 
was as Maria, in Donizetti's La Figlia, which 
Mdlle. Lind may be said to have brought to Eng- 
land, and considered as her special property. . . . 
With myself, the real value of Madame Sontag 
grew, night after night — as her variety, her con- 
scientious steadiness, and her adroit use of dimin- 
ished powers were thus mercilessly tested. In one 
respect, compared with every one who had been 
[248] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

in my time, she was alone, in right, perhaps of 
the studies of her early days — as a singer of 
Mozart's music." 

It was after these last London seasons that 
Mme. Sontag undertook an American tour. She 
died in Mexico. 

The great Mme. Pasta's ill-advised return to 
the stage in 1850 (when she made two belated ap- 
pearances in London) is matter for sadder com- 
ment. Chorley, indeed, is at his best when he 
writes of it, his pen dipped in tears, for none had 
admired this artist in her prime more passionately 
than he. Here was a particularly good oppor- 
tunity to study the bare skeleton of interpre- 
tative art; the result is one of the most striking 
passages in all literature : 

" Her voice, which at its best, had required 
ceaseless watching and practice, had been long ago 
given up by her. Its state of utter ruin on the 
night in question passes description. — She had 
been neglected by those who, at least, should have 
presented her person to the best advantage ad- 
mitted by Time. — Her queenly robes (she was to 
sing some scenes from Arma Bolena) in nowise 
suited or disguised her figure. Her hair-dresser 
had done some tremendous thing or other with her 
head — or rather had left everything undone. A 
[ 249 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

more painful and disastrous spectacle could hardly 
be looked on. — There were artists present, who 
had then, for the first time, to derive some impres- 
sion of a renowned artist — perhaps, with the 
natural feeling that her reputation had been ex- 
aggerated. — Among these was Rachel — whose 
bitter ridicule of the entire sad show made itself 
heard throughout the whole theatre, and drew at- 
tention to the place where she sat — one might 
even say, sarcastically enjoying the scene. 
Among the audience, however, was another gifted 
woman, who might far more legitimately have 
been shocked at the utter wreck of every musical 
means of expression in the singer — who might 
have been more naturally forgiven, if some humour 
of self-glorification had made her severely just — 
not worse — to an old prima donna; — I mean 
Madame Viardot. — Then, and not till then, she 
was hearing Madame Pasta.— But Truth will al- 
ways answer to the appeal of Truth. Dismal as 
was the spectacle — broken, hoarse, and destroyed 
as was the voice — the great style of the singer 
spoke to the great singer. The first scene was 
Ann Boleyn's duet with Jane Seymour. The old 
spirit was heard and seen in Madame Pasta's 
Sorgi! and the gesture with which she signed to 
[250] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

her penitent rival to rise. Later, she attempted 
the final mad scene of the opera — that most com- 
plicated and brilliant among the mad scenes on 
the modern musical stage — with its two cantabile 
movements, its snatches of recitative, and its bra- 
vura of despair, which may be appealed to as an 
example of vocal display, till then unparagoned, 
when turned to the account of frenzy, not frivolity 

— perhaps as such commissioned by the superb 
creative artist. — By that time, tired, unprepared, 
in ruin as she was, she had rallied a little. When 

— on Ann Boleyn's hearing the coronation music 
of her rival, the heroine searches for her own 
crown on her brow — Madame Pasta turned in the 
direction of the festive sounds, the old irresistible 
charm broke out ; — nay, even in the final song, 
with its roulades, and its scales of shakes, ascend- 
ing by a semi-tone, the consummate vocalist and 
tragedian, able to combine form with meaning — 
the moment of the situation, with such personal 
and musical display as form an integral part of 
operatic art — was indicated : at least to the ap- 
prehension of a younger artist. — ' You are right ! ' 
was Madame Viardot's quick and heartfelt re- 
sponse (her eyes were full of tears) to a friend 
beside her — ' You are right ! It is like the Cena- 

[251] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

colo of Da Vinci at Milan — a wreck of a picture, 
but the picture is the greatest picture in the 
world!'" 

The great Mme. Viardot herself, whose intract- 
able voice and noble stage presence inevitably re- 
mind one of Mme. Pasta, took no chances with 
fate. The friend of Alfred de Musset, the model 
for George Sand's " Consuelo," the " creator " of 
Fides in Le Prophete, and the singer who, in the 
revival of Orphee at the Theatre Lyrique in 1859, 
resuscitated Gluck's popularity in Paris, retired 
from the opera stage in 1863 at the age of 43, 
shortly after she had appeared in Alceste! (She 
sang in concert occasionally until 1870 or later.) 
Thereafter she divided her time principally be- 
tween Baden and Paris and became the great 
friend of Turgeniev. His very delightful letters 
to her have been published. Idleness was abhor- 
rent to this fine woman and in her middle and old 
age she gave lessons, while singers, composers, and 
conductors alike came to her for help and advice. 
She died in 1910' at the age of 89. Her less cele- 
brated brother, Manuel Garcia (less celebrated as 
a singer; as a teacher he is given the credit for 
having restored Jenny Lind's voice. Among his 
other pupils Mathilde Marchesi and Marie Tem- 
pest may be mentioned), had died in 1906 at the 
[ £52 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

age of 101. Her sister, Mme, Malibran, died very 
young, in the early Nineteenth Century, before, in 
fact, Mme. Viardot had made her debut. 

Few singers have had the wisdom to follow Mme. 
Viardot's excellent example. The great Jenny 
Lind, long after her voice had lost its quality, con- 
tinued to sing in oratorio and concert. So did 
Adelina Patti. Muriel Starr once told me of a par- 
rot she encountered in Australia. The poor bird 
had arrived at the noble age of 117 and was en- 
tirely bereft of feathers. Flapping his stumpy 
wings he cried incessantly, "I'll fly, by God, I'll 
fly ! " So, many singers, having lost their voices, 
continue to croak, " I'll sing, by God, I'll sing ! " 
The Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, himself a man of 
considerable years when he published his highly 
diverting " Musical Reminiscences," gives us some 
extraordinary pictures of senility on the stage at 
the close of the Eighteenth Century. There was, 
for example, the case of Cecilia Davis, the first 
Englishwoman to sustain the part of prima donna 
and in that situation was second only to Gabrielli, 
whom she even rivalled in neatness of execution. 
Mount Edgcumbe found Miss Davies in Florence, 
unengaged and poor. A concert was arranged at 
which she appeared with her sister. Later she re- 
turned to England . . . too old to secure an en~ 
[ 253 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

gagement. " This unfortunate woman is now (in 
1834) living in London, in the extreme of old age, 
disease, and poverty," writes the Earl. He also 
speaks of a Signora Galli, of large and masculine 
figure and contralto voice, who frequently filled the 
part of second man at the Opera. She had been 
a principal singer in Handel's oratorios when con- 
ducted by himself. She afterwards fell into ex- 
treme poverty, and at the age of about seventy 
(!!!!), was induced to come forward to sing again 
at the oratorios. " I had the curiosity to go, and 
heard her sing He was despised and rejected of 
men in The Messiah. Of course her voice was 
cracked and trembling, but it was easy to see her 
school was good ; and it was a pleasure to observe 
the kindness with which she was received and lis- 
tened to; and to mark the animation and delight 
with which she seemed to hear again the music in 
which she had formerly been a distinguished per- 
former. The poor old woman had been in the 
habit of coming to me annually for a trifling 
present; and she told me on that occasion that 
nothing but the severest distress should have com- 
pelled her so to expose herself, which after all, did 
not answer to its end, as she was not paid accord- 
ing to her agreement. She died shortly after." 
In 1783 the Earl heard a singer named Allegranti 
[ 254 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

in Dresden, then at the height of her powers. 
Later she returned to England and reappeared in 
Cimarosa's Matrimonio Segreto. " Never was 
there a more pitiable attempt: she had scarcely a 
thread of voice remaining, nor the power to sing 
a note in tune : her figure and acting were equally 
altered for the worse, and after a few nights she 
was obliged to retire and quit the stage alto- 
gether." The celebrated Madame Mara, after a 
long sojourn in Russia, suddenly returned to Eng- 
land and was announced for a benefit performance 
at the King's Theatre after everybody had for- 
gotten her existence. " She must have been at 
least seventy; but it was said that her voice had 
miraculously returned, and was as good as ever. 
But when she displayed those wonderfully revived 
powers, they proved, as might have been expected, 
lamentably deficient, and the tones she produced 
were compared to those of a penny trumpet. 
Curiosity was so little excited that the concert 
was ill attended . . . and Madame Mara was 
heard no more. I was not so lucky (or so un- 
lucky) as to hear these her last notes, as it was 
early in the winter, and I was not in town. She 
returned to Russia, and was a great sufferer by 
the burning of Moscow. After that she lived at 
Mitlau, or some other town near the Baltic, where 
[255] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

she died at a great age, not many years ago." 

Here is Michael Kelly's account of the same 
event : " With all her great skill and knowledge 
of the world, Madame Mara was induced, by the 
advice of some of her mistaken friends, to give a 
public concert at the King's Theatre, in her 
seventy-second year, when, in the course of nature 
her powers had failed her. It was truly grievous 
to see such transcendent talents as she once pos- 
sessed, so sunk — so fallen. I used every effort in 
my power to prevent her committing herself, but in 
vain. Among other arguments to draw her from 
her purpose, I told her what happened to Mon- 
belli, one of the first tenors of his day, who lost 
all his well-earned reputation and fame, by rashly 
performing the part of a lover, at the Pergola 
Theatre, at Florence, in his seventieth year, having 
totally lost his voice. On the stage, he was hissed ; 
and the following lines, lampooning his attempt, 
were chalked on his house-door,, as well as upon 
the walls of the city : — 

* All* eta di settanta 

Non si ama, ne si cant a. 9 " 

W. T. Parke, forty years principal oboe player 
at Covent Garden Theatre, is kinder to Madame 
[256] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

Mara in his " Musical Memoirs," but it must be 
taken into account that he is kinder to every one 
else, too. There is little of the acrimonious or the 
fault-finding note in his pages. This is his version 
of the affair : " That extraordinary singer of 
former days, Madame Mara, who had passed the 
last eighteen years in Russia, and who had lately 
arrived in England, gave a concert at the King's 
Theatre on the 6th of March (1820), which highly 
excited the curiosity of the musical public. On 
that occasion she sang some of her best airs ; and 
though her powers were greatly inferior to what 
they were in her zenith, yet the same pure taste 
pervaded her performance. Whether vanity or 
interest stimulated Mara at her time of life to that 
undertaking, it would be difficult to determine ; but 
whichsoever had the ascendency, her reign was 
short; for by singing one night afterwards at the 
vocal concert, the veil which had obscured her 
judgment was removed, and she retired to enjoy 
in private life those comforts which her rare talent 
had procured for her." 

Parke also speaks of a Mrs. Pinto, " the once 
celebrated Miss Brent, the original Mandane in 
Arne's Artaxerxes" who appeared in 1785 at the 
age of nearly seventy in Milton's Mask of Comus 
at a benefit for a Mr. Hull, " the respectable stage- 
[ 257 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

manager of Covent Garden Theatre." She was to 
sing the song of Sweet Echo and as Parke was to 
play the responses to her voice on the oboe he re- 
paired to her house for rehearsal. " Although 
nearly seventy years old, her voice possessed the 
remains of those qualities for which it had been so 
much celebrated, — power, flexibility, and sweet- 
ness. On the night Comus was performed she 
sung with an unexpected degree of excellence, and 
was loudly applauded. This old lady, as a 
singer, gave me the idea of a fine piece of ruins, 
which though considerably dilapidated, still dis- 
played some of its original beauties." 

The celebrated Faustina, whose quarrel with 
Cuzzoni is as famous in the history of music as the 
war between Gluck and Piccinni, was less daring. 
Dr. Burney visited her when she was seventy-two 
years old and asked her to sing. " Alas, I can- 
not," she replied, " I have lost all my faculties." 

La Camargo, the favourite dancer of Paris in 
the early Eighteenth Century, the inventor, in- 
deed of the short ballet skirt, and the possessor of 
many lovers, retired from the stage in 1751 with 
a large fortune, besides a pension of fifteen hun- 
dred francs. Thenceforth she led a secluded life. 
She was an assiduous visitor to the poor of her 
parish and she kept a dozen dogs and an angora 
[258] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

cat which she overwhelmed with affection. In that 
quaint book, " The Powder Puff," by Franz Blei, 
you may find a most charming description of a 
call paid to the lady in 1768 in her little old house 
in the Rue St, Thomas du Louvre, by Duclos, 
Grimm, and Helvetius, who had come in bantering 
mood to ask her whom, in her past life, she had 
loved best. Her reply touched these men, who 
took their leave. " Helvetius told Camargo's 
story to his wife ; Grimm made a note of it for his 
Court Journal; and as for Duclos, it suggested 
some moral reflections to him, for when, two years 
later, Mile. Marianne Camargo was carried to her 
grave, he remarked : * It is quite fitting to give 
her a white pall like a virgin.' " 

Sophie Arnould, one of the most celebrated ac- 
tresses and singers of the Eightenth Century, died 
in poverty at the age of 6S and there is no rec- 
ord of her burial place. She had been the friend 
of Voltaire, Rousseau, d'Alembert, Diderot, Hel- 
vetius, and the Baron d'Holbach. She had " cre- 
ated " Gluck's Iphigenie en Awlide and the com- 
poser had said of her, " If it had not been for the 
voice and elocution of Mile. Arnould, my Iphige- 
nie would never have been performed in France." 
In her youth she had interested not only Marie 
Antoinette but also the King, and she had been 
[259] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

the object of Mme. de Pompadour's suspicion and 
Mme. du Barry's rage. Gar rick declared her a 
better actress than Clairon. She was as famous 
for her wit as for her singing and acting. When 
Mme. Laguerre appeared drunk in Iphigenie en 
Tauride she exclaimed, " Why this is Iphigenie en 
Champagne! " Indeed, she made so many re- 
marks worthy of preservation that shortly after 
her death in 1802, a book called " Arnoldiana," 
devoted to her epigrams, was issued. . . . Never- 
theless, this lady was hissed at the age of 36, when, 
after a short absence from the stage she reap- 
peared as Iphigenie in 1776. She was neither old 
nor ugly and if her voice may have lost something 
her nineteen years of stage life in Paris might 
have weighed against that. On one occasion, ac- 
cording to La Harpe, when she had the line to sing, 
" You long for me to be gone," the audience ap- 
plauded vociferously. To protect Sophie, Marie 
Antoinette sat in a box on several nights and 
stemmed the storm of disapproval, but in the end 
even the presence of the queen herself was insuf- 
ficient to quell the hissing. One sad story com- 
pletes the picture. In 1785, when her financial 
troubles were beginning, her two sons, who bore 
her no love, called for money. She had none to 
give them. " There are two horses left in the 
[ 260 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

stable," she said. " Take those." They rode 
away on the horses. 

Latin audiences are notoriously unfaithful to 
their stage favourites. In " The Innocents 
Abroad " Mark Twain tells us of the bad manners 
of an Italian audience. The singer he mentions 
is Erminia Frezzolini, born at Orvieto in 1818. 
She sang both in England and America. Chorley 
said of her: " She was an elegant, tall woman, 
born with a lovely voice, and bred with great vocal 
skill (of a certain order) ; but she was the first 
who arrived of the ' young Italians ' — of those 
who fancy that driving the voice to its extremities 
can stand in the stead of passion. But she was, 
nevertheless, a real singer, and her art stood her 
in stead for some years after nature broke down. 
When she had left her scarce a note of her rich and 
real soprano voice to scream with, Madame Frez- 
zolini was still charming." She died in Paris, 
November 5, 1884. Now for Mark Twain: 

" I said I knew nothing against the upper classes 
from personal observation. I must recall it. I 
had forgotten. What I saw their bravest and 
their fairest do last night, the lowest multitude 
that could be scraped out of the purlieus of Chris- 
tendom would blush to do, I think. They assem- 
bled by hundreds, and even thousands, in the great 
[ 261 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

Theatre of San Carlo to do — what ? Why sim- 
ply to make fun of an old woman — to deride, to 
hiss, to jeer at an actress they once worshipped, 
but whose beauty is faded now, and whose voice 
has lost its former richness. Everybody spoke of 
the rare sport there was to be. They said the 
theatre would be crammed because Frezzolini was 
going to sing. It was said she could not sing well 
now, but then the people liked to see her, anyhow. 
And so we went. And every time the woman sang 
they hissed and laughed — the whole magnificent 
house — and as soon as she left the stage they 
called her on again with applause. Once or twice 
she was encored five and six times in succession, 
and received with hisses when she appeared, and 
discharged with hisses and laughter when she had 
finished — then instantly encored and insulted 
again! And how the high-born knaves enjoyed 
it! White-kidded gentlemen and ladies laughed 
till the tears came, and clapped their hands in 
very ecstasy when that unhappy old woman would 
come meekly out for the sixth time, with uncom- 
plaining patience, to meet a storm of hisses ! It 
was the cruellest exhibition — the most wanton, 
the most unfeeling. The singer would have con- 
quered an audience of American rowdies by her 
brave, unflinching tranquillity (for she answered 
[ 262 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

encore after encore, and smiled and bowed pleas- 
antly, and sang the best she possibly could, and 
went bowing off, through all the jeers and hisses, 
without ever losing countenance or temper) ; and 
surely in any other land than Italy her sex and her 
helplessness must have been an ample protection 
for her — she could have needed no other. Think 
what a multitude of small souls were crowded into 
that theatre last night I " 

English audiences, on the other hand, are noto- 
riously friendly to their old favourites. When Dr. 
Hanslick, the Viennese critic, visited England and 
heard Sims Reeves singing before crowded houses 
as he had been doing for forty or fifty years, he 
remarked, " It is not easy to win the favour of the 
English public ; to lose it is quite impossible." 

Mme. Grisi made her last appearance in London 
in 1866 at the theatre she had left twenty years 
previously, Her Majesty's. The opera was Lu- 
crezia Borgia. At the end of the first act she 
miscalculated the depth of the apron and the de- 
scending curtain left her outside on her knees. 
She had stiffness in her joints and was unable to 
rise without assistance. . . . This situation must 
have been very embarassing to a singer who pre- 
viously had been an idol of the public. In the pas- 
sionate duet with the tenor she made an unsuccess- 
[ 263 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

ful attempt to reach the A natural. Notwith- 
standing the fact that she was well received and 
that she got through with the greater part of the 
opera with credit, her impressario, J. H. Maple- 
son, relates in his " Memoirs " that after the final 
curtain had fallen she rushed to tell him that it 
was all over and that she would never appear 
again. In " Student and Singer " Charles Sant- 
ley writes of the occasion : " I had been singing 
at the Crystal Palace concert in the afternoon, 
and after dining there I went up to the theatre 
to see a little of the performance. I felt very 
sorry for Grisi that she had been induced to appear 
again; it was a sad sight for any one who had 
known her in her prime, and even long past it." 

However, even English audiences can be cold. 
John E. Cox, in his " Musical Recollections," re- 
calls an earlier occasion when Grisi sang at the 
Crystal Palace without much success (July 31, 
1861) : " On retiring from the orchestra, after a 
peculiarly cold reception — as unkind as it was in- 
considerate, seeing what the career of this remark- 
able woman had been — there was not a single per- 
son at the foot of the orchestra to receive or to 
accompany her to her retiring room ! I could im- 
agine what her feelings at that moment must have 
been — she who had in former years been accus- 
[ 264 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

tomed to be thronged, wherever she appeared, and 
to be the recipient of adulation — often as exag- 
gerated as it was fulsome — but who was now 
literally deserted. With Grisi — although I had 
been once or twice introduced to her — I never had 
any personal acquaintance. I could not, however, 
resist the impulse of preceding her, without ob- 
truding myself on her notice, and opening the door 
of the retiring room for her, which was situated at 
some considerable distance from the orchestra. 
Her look as I did this, and she passed out of sight, 
is amongst the most painful of my ' Recollec- 
tions.' " 

German audiences are usually kind to their 
favourites. In America we adopt neither the at- 
titude of the English and Germans, nor yet that 
of the Italians and French. We simply stay away 
from the theatre. Mark Twain has put it suc- 
cinctly, " When a singer has lost his voice and a 
jumper his legs, those parties fail to draw." 

Benjamin Lumley in his " Reminiscences of the 
Opera," quoting an anonymous friend, relates a 
touching story regarding Catalani, who was born 
in 1779 and who retired from the stage in 1831. 
When Jenny Lind visited Paris in the spring of 
1849 she learned to her astonishment that Cata- 
lan! was in the French capital. The old singer, 
[ % 5 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

who resided habitually in Florence, had come to 
Paris with her daughter who, as the widow of a 
Frenchman, was obliged to go through certain 
legal forms before taking possession of her share 
of her husband's property. Through a friend of 
both ladies it was arranged that the two should 
meet at a dinner at the home of the Marquis of 
Normansby, the English ambassador to the Tus- 
can court, but the Swedish singer could not re- 
strain her impatience and before that event she 
set out one forenoon for Mme. Catalani's apart- 
ment in the Rue de la Paix and sent in her name 
by a servant. The old singer hastened out to 
greet her distinguished visitor with obvious de- 
light. She had known nothing of Mile. Lind's 
presence in Paris and had feared that such a 
chance would never befall her, much as she had 
longed to see the celebrated singer who had ex- 
cited the English public in a way which recalled 
her own past triumphs and who rivalled her in her 
purity and her charity. They talked together 
for an hour. ... At the dinner the Marchioness 
of Normansby considerately refrained from asking 
Jenny Lind to sing, because no one is allowed to 
refuse such an invitation made by a representative 
of royalty. Catalani, however, had no such scru- 
ples. She went up to the Nightingale and begged 
[266] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

her to sing, adding, " C'est la viettle Catalini qui 
desire vous entendre chanter, avant de mourir! " 
This appeal was irresistible. Jenny Lind sat 
down to the piano and sang Non credea 
mirarti and one or two other airs, including Ah! 
non giunge. Catalani is described as sitting on 
an ottoman in the centre of the room, rocking her 
body to and fro with delight and sympathy, mur- 
muring, " Ah la bella cosa che la musica, quando 
si fa di quella maniera! " and again " Ah! la car- 
is sima! quant o bellissima! " A dinner at Cata- 
lani's apartment followed, but a few days later it 
became known that the old singer was ill, an ill- 
ness which proved fatal. She had, however, 
heard the Swedish Nightingale sing " avant de 
mourir." 

William Gardiner visited Madame Catalani in 
1846. " I was surprised at the vigour of Madame 
Catalani," he says, " and how little she has al- 
tered since I saw her in Derby in 1828. I paid 
her a compliment on her good looks. 6 Ah,' said 
she, ' I'm sixty-six ! ' She has lost none of that 
commanding expression which gave her such dig- 
nity on the stage. She is without a wrinkle, and 
appears to be no more than forty. Her breadth 
of chest is still remarkable: it is this which en- 
dowed her with the finest voice that ever sang. 
[ 267 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

Her speaking voice and dramatic air are still 
charming, and not in the least impaired." 

Is Christine Nilsson still alive? I think so. 
She was born August 20, 1843. In Clara Louise 
Kellogg's very entertaining, but not always trust- 
worthy, " Memoirs " there is an interesting refer- 
ence to this singer in her later career. Dates, un- 
fortunately, are not furnished. " I was present," 
declares Mme. Kellogg, " on the night . . . when 
she practically murdered the high register of her 
voice. She had five upper notes the quality of 
which was unlike any other I ever heard and that 
possessed a peculiar charm. The tragedy hap- 
pened during a performance of The Magic Flute 
in London. . . . Nilsson was the Queen of the 
Night, one of her most successful early roles. 
The second aria in The Magic Flute is more fa- 
mous and less difficult than the first aria, and also, 
more effective. Nilsson knew well the ineffective- 
ness of the ending of the first aria in the two weak- 
est notes of a soprano's voice, A natural and B 
flat. I never could understand why a master like 
Mozart should have chosen to use them as he did. 
There is no climax to the song. One has to climb 
up hard and fast and then stop short in the middle. 
It is an appalling thing to do and that night 
Nilsson took those two notes at the last in chest 
[268] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

tones. ' Great heavens ! ' I gasped, ' what is she 
doing? What is the woman thinking of!' Of 
course I knew she was doing it to get volume and 
vibration and to give that trying climax some 
character. But to say that it was a fatal attempt 
is to put it mildly. She absolutely killed a certain 
quality in her voice there and then and she never 
recovered it. Even that night she had to cut out 
the second great aria. Her beautiful high notes 
were gone forever." As I have said, the date of 
this incident, which, so far as I know, is not re- 
corded elsewhere, is not mentioned, but Christine 
Nilsson sang in New York in the early Eighties 
and continued to sing until 1891, the year of her 
final appearance in London. 

Adelina Patti, born the same year as Nilsson 
but six months before (February 10, 1843 ; accord- 
ing to some records, which by no means go undis- 
puted, a quartet of famous singers came into the 
world this year. The other two were lima de 
Murska and Pauline Lucca) made many farewell 
tours of this country . . . one too many in 
1903—4, when she displayed the beaux restes of her 
voice. She is living at present in retirement at 
Craig-y-Nos in Wales. Her greatest rival, 
Etelka Gerster, too, is alive, I believe. 

Lilli Lehmann, one of the oldest of the living 
[ 269 ] 



De Senectute Canto rum 

great singers, was born May 13, 1848. She was 
a member of the famous casts which introduced 
many of the Wagner works to New York. Her 
last appearances in opera here were made, I think, 
in the late Nineties, but she has sung here since in 
concert and in Germany she has frequently assisted 
at the performances of the Mozart festivals at 
Salzburg and has even sung in Norma and Gotter- 
dammerung within recent years ! Her head is now 
crowned with white hair and her noble appearance 
and magnificent style in singing have doubtless 
stood her in good stead at these belated per- 
formances, which probably were disappointing, 
judged as vocal exhibitions. 

Lillian Nordica had a long career. She was 
born May 12, 1859, and made her operatic debut 
in Brescia in La Traviata in 1879. She continued 
to sing up to the time of her death in Batavia, 
Java, May 10, 1914. Indeed she was then un- 
dertaking a concert tour of the world at the age of 
55 ! But the artist, who in the Nineties had held 
the Metropolitan Opera House stage with honour 
in the great dramatic roles, had very little to offer 
in her last years. Never a great musician, defects 
in style began to make themselves evident as her 
vocal powers decreased. Her season at the Man- 
hattan Opera House in 1907-8 was quickly and 
[870] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

unpleasantly terminated. A subsequent single ap- 
pearance as Isolde at the Metropolitan in the 
winter of 1909—10 was even less successful. The 
voice had lost its resonance, the singer her appeal. 
Her magnificent courage and indomitable ambition 
urged her on to the end. 

Two singers whose voices have been mirac- 
ulously preserved, who have indeed suffered little 
from the ravages of time, are Marcella Sembrich 
and Nellie Melba. Both of these singers, how- 
ever, have consistently refrained from misusing 
their voices (if one may except the one occasion on 
which Mme. Melba attempted to sing Brunnhilde 
in Siegfried with disastrous results). Mme. 
Melba (according to Grove's Dictionary, which, 
like all other books devoted to the subject of 
music, is frequently inaccurate) was born in Aus- 
tralia, May 19, 1859. Therefore she was 28 
years old when she made her debut in Brussels as 
Gilda on October 12, 1887. She has used her 
voice carefully and well and still sings in concert 
and opera at the age of 59. With the advance of 
age, indeed, her voice began to take on colour. 
When she sang here in opera at the Manhattan 
Opera House in 1906—7 she was in her best vocal 
estate. Her voice, originally rather pale, had be- 
come mellow and rich, although it is possible it had 
[271] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

lost some of its old remarkable agility. When 
last I listened to her in concert, a few years ago at 
the Hippodrome, it seemed to me that I had never 
before heard so beautiful a voice, and yet Mme. 
Melba sang in the first performance of opera I 
ever attended (Chicago Auditorium; Faust, Feb- 
ruary 22, 1899). 

According to H. T. Finck, Caruso once said, 
" When you hear that an artist is going to re- 
tire, don't you believe it, for as long as he keeps 
his voice he will sing. You may depend upon 
that." Sometimes, indeed, longer. Mme. Melba 
made a belated and unfortunate attempt to sing 
Marguerite in Faust with the Chicago Opera Com- 
pany, Monday evening, February 4, 1918, at the 
Lexington Theatre, New York. She sang with 
some art and style; her tone was still pure and 
her wonderful enunciation still remained a feature 
of her performance but scarcely a shadow of the 
beautiful voice I can remember so well was left. 
As if to atone for vocal deficiencies the singer 
made histrionic efforts such as she had never 
deemed necessary during the height of her career. 
Her meeting with Faust in the Kermesse scene was 
accomplished with modesty that almost became 
fright. She nearly danced the jewel song and em- 
braced the tenor with passion in the love duet. In 
[ 272 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

the church scene, overcome with terror at the sight 
of Mephistopheles, she flung her prayer book 
across the stage. . . . Her appearance was almost 
shocking and the first lines of the part of Mar- 
guerite, " Non monsieur, je ne suis demoiselle, ni 
belle " had a merciless application. However, the 
audience received her with kindness, more with a 
certain sort of enthusiasm. She reappeared again 
in the same opera on Thursday evening, February 
14f, 1918, but on this occasion I did not hear her. 
Marcella Sembrich was born February 15, 1858. 
She made her debut in Athens in J Puritani, 
June 3, 1877, and she made her New York 
debut in Lucia October 24, 1883, at the begin- 
ning of the first season of the Metropolitan 
Opera House. After a long absence she re- 
turned to New York in 1898 as Rosina in II 
Barbiere. After that year she sang pretty 
steadily at the Metropolitan until February 6, 
1909, when, at the age of 51 (or lacking nine days 
of it), she bid farewell to the New York opera 
stage in acts from several of her favourite operas. 
She subsequently sang in a few performances of 
opera in Europe and was heard in song recital in 
America. When she left the opera house she had 
no rival in vocal artistry; and she had so satis- 
factorily solved the problems of style in singing 
[ 273 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

certain kinds of songs that she also surveyed the 
field of song recital from a mountain top. . . . 
But such a singer as Mme. Sembrich, who made 
her appeal through the expression of the milder 
emotions, who never, indeed, attempted to touch 
dramatic depths, even style, in the end, will not 
assist. Magnificent Lilli Lehmann might make a 
certain effect in Gotterdammerimg so long as she 
had a leg to stand on or a note to croak, but an 
adequate delivery of Der Nussbaum or Wie Melo- 
dien demands a vocal control which a singer past 
middle age is not always sure of possessing. . . . 
After a long retirement, Mme. Sembrich gave a 
concert at Carnegie Hall, November 21, 1915. 
The house was crowded and the applause at the 
beginning must almost have unnerved the singer, 
who walked slowly towards the front of the plat- 
form as the storm burst and then bowed her head 
again and again. Her program «n this occasion 
was not one of her best. She had not chosen fa- 
miliar songs in which to return to her public. 
This may in a measure account for her lack of suc- 
cess in always calling forth steady tones. How- 
ever, on the whole, her voice sounded amazingly 
fresh. Her high notes especially rang true and 
resonant as ever. Her middle voice showed wear. 
Her style remained impeccable, unrivalled. . . . 
[ 274 ] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

She announced, following this concert, a series of 
four recitals in a small hall and actually appeared 
at one of them. This time I did not hear her, but 
I am told that her voice refused to respond to her 
wishes. Nor was the hall filled. The remaining 
concerts were abandoned. " Mme. Sembrich has 
never been a failure and she is too old to begin 
now ! " she is reported to have said to a friend. 

Emma Calve's date of birth is recorded as 1864 
in some of the musical dictionaries. This would 
make her 53 years old. Her singing of the Mar- 
seillaise a year ago at the Allies Bazaar at the 
Grand Central Palace proved to me that her re- 
tirement from the Opera was premature. Her 
performances at the Manhattan Opera House in 
1906-7 were memorable, vocally superb. Her 
Carmen was out of drawing dramatically, but her 
Anita and her Santuzza remained triumphs of 
stage craft. 

Emma Eames, born August 13, 1867, is three 
years younger than Mme. Calve. She made her 
debut as Juliette, March 13, 1889. She retired 
from the opera stage in 1907-8, although she has 
sung since then a few times in concert. Her last 
appearances at the Opera were made in dramatic 
roles, Donna Anna, Leonora (in Trovatore), and 
[275] 



De Senectute Cantorum 

Tosca, in contradistinction to the lyric parts in 
which she gained her early fame. That she was 
entirely successful in compassing the breach can- 
not be said in all justice. Yet there was a certain 
distinction in her manner, a certain acid quality in 
her voice, that gave force to these character- 
izations. Certainly, however, no one would ever 
have compared her Donna Anna favourably with 
her Countess in Figaro. Her performance of Or 
sai chi Vonore was deficient in breadth of style and 
her lack of breath control at this period gave un- 
certainty to her execution. 

Life teaches us, through experience, that no rule 
is infallible, but insofar as I am able to give a 
meaning to these rambling biographical notes, col- 
lected, I may as well admit, more to interest my 
reader than to prove anything, it is the meaning, 
sounded with a high note of truth, by Arthur Sy- 
mons, in the paragraph quoted at the beginning 
of this essay. Style is a rare quality in a singer. 
With it in his possession an artist may dare much 
for a long time. Without it he exists as long as 
those qualities which are perfectly natural to him 
exist. A voice fades, but a manner of applying 
that voice (even when there is practically no voice 
to apply) to an artistic problem has an indefinite 
term of life. 

[ 276 ] 






De Senectute Cantorum 

Yvette Guilbert once told me that crossing the 
Atlantic with Duse on one occasion she had asked 
the Italian actress if she were going to include La 
Dame auw Camelias in her American repertory. 
" I am too old to play Marguerite . . ." was the 
sad response. " She was right," said Guilbert, in 
relating the incident, " she was too old ; she was 
born too old ... in spirit. Now when I am 
sixty-three I shall begin to impersonate children. 
I grow younger every year ! " 

September 1%, 1917. 



[277] 



Impressions in the Theatre 



I 

The Land of Joy 

" Dancing is something more than an amuse- 
ment in Spain. It is part of that solemn ritual 
which enters into the whole life of the people. It 
expresses their very spirit." 

Havelock Ellis. 



AN idle observer of theatrical conditions 
might derive a certain ironic pleasure from 
remarking the contradiction implied in the 
professed admiration of the constables of the 
playhouse for the unconventional and their almost 
passionate adoration for the conventional. We 
constantly hear it said that the public cries for 
novelty, and just as constantly we see the same 
kind of acting, the same gestures, the same Julian 
Mitchellisms and George Marionisms and Ned 
Wayburnisms repeated in and out of season, sum- 
mer and winter. Indeed, certain conventions 
(which bore us even now) are so deeply rooted in 
the soil of our theatre that I see no hope of their 
being eradicated before the year 1999, at which 
date other conventions will have supplanted them 
and will likewise have become tiresome. 
[281] 



The Land of Joy 

In this respect our theatre does not differ ma- 
terially from the theatres of other countries ex- 
cept in one particular. In Europe the juxtapo- 
sition of nations makes an interchange of conven- 
tions possible, which brings about slow change or 
rapid revolution. Paris, for example, has received 
visits from the Russian Ballet which almost as- 
sumed the proportions of Tartar invasions. 
London, too, has been invaded by the Russians 
and by the Irish. The Irish playwrights, indeed, 
are continually pounding away at British middle- 
class complacency. Germany, in turn, has been 
invaded by England (we regret that this sentence 
has only an artistic and figurative significance), 
and we find Max Reinhardt well on his way toward 
giving a complete cycle of the plays of Shakes- 
peare; a few years ago we might have observed 
Deutschland groveling hysterically before Oscar 
Wilde's Salome, a play which, at least without its 
musical dress, has not, I believe, even yet been per- 
formed publicly in London. In Italy, of course, 
there are no artistic invasions (nobody cares to 
pay for them) and even the conventions of the 
Italian theatre themselves, such as the Commedia 
deVArte, are quite dead; so the country remains 
as dormant, artistically speaking, as a rag rug, 
until an enthusiast like Marinetti arises to take it 
[ 282 ] 



The Land of Joy 

between his teeth and shake it back into rags 
again. 

Very often whisperings of art life in the foreign 
theatre (such as accounts of Stanislavski's ac- 
complishments in Moscow) cross the Atlantic. 
Very often the husks of the realities (as was the 
case with the Russian Ballet) are imported. But 
whispers and husks have about as much influence 
as the " New York Times " in a mayoralty cam- 
paign, and as a result we find the American theatre 
as little aware of world activities in the drama as 
a deaf mute living on a pole in the desert of 
Sahara would be. Indeed any intrepid foreign 
investigator who wishes to study the American 
drama, American acting, and American stage dec- 
oration will find them in almost as virgin a condi- 
tion as they were in the time of Lincoln. 

A few rude assaults have been made on this 
smug eupepsy. I might mention the coming of 
Paul Orleneff, who left Alia Nazimova with us to 
be eventually swallowed up in the conventional 
American theatre. Four or five years ago a com- 
pany of Negro players at the Lafayette Theatre 
gave a performance of a musical revue that 
boomed like the big bell in the Kremlin at Moscow. 
Nobody could be deaf to the sounds. Florenz 
Ziegfeld took over as many of the tunes and ges- 
[283] 



The Land of Joy 

tures as he could buy for his Follies of that 
season, but he neglected to import the one essen- 
tial quality of the entertainment, its style, for 
the exploitation of which Negro players were in- 
dispensable. For the past two months Mimi 
Aguglia, one of the greatest actresses of the world, 
has been performing in a succession of classic and 
modern plays (a repertory comprising dramas by 
Shakespeare, d'Annunzio, and Giacosa) at the 
Garibaldi Theatre, on East Fourth Street, before 
very large and very enthusiastic audiences, but 
uptown culture and managerial acumen will not 
awaken to the importance of this gesture until they 
read about it in some book published in 1950. . . . 
All of which is merely by way of prelude to what 
I feel must be something in the nature of lyric out- 
burst and verbal explosion. A few nights ago a 
Spanish company, unheralded, unsung, indeed al- 
most unwelcomed by such reviewers as had to 
trudge to the out-of-the-way Park Theatre, came 
to New York, in a musical revue entitled The 
Land of Joy. The score was written by Joaquin 
Valverde, fits, whose music is not unknown to us, 
and the company included La Argentina, a Spanish 
dancer who had given matinees here in a past sea- 
son without arousing more than mild enthusiasm. 
The theatrical impressarii, the song publishers, 
[ 284* ] 



The Land of Joy 

and the Broadway rabble stayed away on the first 
night. It was all very well, they might have rea- 
soned, to read about the goings on in Spain, but 
they would never do in America. Spanish dancers 
had been imported in the past without awakening 
undue excitement. Did not the great Carmencita 
herself visit America twenty or more years ago? 
These impressarii had ignored the existence of a 
great psychological (or more properly physiolog- 
ical) truth: you cannot mix Burgundy and Beer! 
One Spanish dancer surrounded by Americans is 
just as much lost as the great Nijinsky himself 
was in an English music hall, where he made a 
complete and dismal failure. And so they would 
have been very much astonished (had they been 
present) on the opening night to have witnessed 
all the scenes of uncontrollable enthusiasm — just 
as they are described by Havelock Ellis, Richard 
Ford, and Chabrier — repeated. The audience, 
indeed, became hysterical, and broke into wild 
cries of Ole! Olef Hats were thrown on the stage. 
The audience became as abandoned as the players, 
became a part of the action. 

You will find all this described in " The Soul of 

Spain," in " Gatherings from Spain," in Chabrier's 

letters, and it had all been transplanted to New 

York almost without a whisper of preparation, 

[ 285 ] 



The Land of Joy 

which is fortunate, for if it had been expected, 
doubtless we would have found the way to spoil it. 
Fancy the average New York first-night audience, 
stiff and unbending, sceptical and sardonic, wel- 
coming this exhibition ! Havelock Ellis gives an 
ingenious explanation for the fact that Spanish 
dancing has seldom if ever successfully crossed the 
border of the Iberian peninsula : " The finest 
Spanish dancing is at once killed or degraded by 
the presence of an indifferent or unsympathetic 
public, and that is probably why it cannot be 
transplanted, but remains local." Fortunately 
the Spaniards in the first-night audience gave the 
cue, unlocked the lips and loosened the hands of 
us cold Americans. For my part, I was soon yell- 
ing Ole! louder than anybody else. 

The dancer, Doloretes, is indeed extraordinary. 
The gipsy fascination, the abandoned, perverse 
bewitchery of this female devil of the dance is not 
to be described by mouth, typewriter, or quilled 
pen. Heine would have put her at the head of his 
dancing temptresses in his ballet of Mephistophela 
(found by Lumley too indecent for representation 
at Her Majesty's Theatre, for which it was writ- 
ten; in spite of which the scenario was published 
in the respectable "Revue de Deux Mondes "). 
[286] 



The Land of Joy 

In this ballet a series of dancing celebrities are ex- 
hibited by the female Mephistopheles for the enter- 
tainment of her victim. After Salome had twisted 
her flanks and exploited the prowess of her abdom- 
inal muscles to perfunctory applause, Doloretes 
would have heated the blood, not only of Faust, 
but of the ladies and gentlemen in the orchestra 
stalls, with the clicking of her heels, the clacking of 
her castanets, now held high over head, now held 
low behind her back, the flashing of her ivory teeth, 
the shrill screaming, electric magenta of her smile, 
the wile of her wriggle, the passion of her per- 
formance. And close beside her the sinuous Maz- 
antinita would flaunt a garish tambourine and 
wave a shrieking fan. All inanimate objects, 
shawls, mantillas, combs, and cymbals, become in- 
flamed with life, once they are pressed into the serv- 
ice of these senoritas, languorous and forbidding, 
indifferent and sensuous. Against these rude gip- 
sies the refined grace and Goyaesque elegance of 
La Argentina stand forth in high relief, La Argen- 
tina, in whose hands the castanets become as potent 
an instrument for our pleasure as the violin does in 
the fingers of Jascha Heifetz. Bilbao, too, with 
his thundering heels and his tauromachian gestures, 
bewilders our highly magnetized senses. When, in 
[ 287 ] 



The Land of Joy 

the dance, he pursues, without catching, the elusive 
Doloretes, it would seem that the limit of dynamic 
effects in the theatre had been reached. 

Here are singers ! The limpid and lovely 
soprano of the comparatively placid Maria Marco, 
who introduces figurations into the brilliant music 
she sings at every turn. One indecent (there is 
no other word for it) chromatic oriental phrase is 
so strange that none of us can ever recall it or 
forget it! And the frantically nervous Luisita 
Puchol, whose eyelids spring open like the cover 
of a Jack-in-the-box, and whose hands flutter 
like saucy butterflies, sings suggestive popular 
ditties just a shade better than any one else I 
know of. 

But The Land of Joy does not rely on one or 
two principals for its effect. The organization as 
a whole is as full of fire and purpose as the orig- 
inal Russian Ballet ; the costumes themselves, in 
their blazing, heated colours, constitute the ingre- 
dients of an orgy; the music, now sentimental (the 
adaptability of Valverde, who has lived in Paris, is 
little short of amazing ; there is a vocal waltz in the 
style of Arditi that Mme. Patti might have intro- 
duced into the lesson scene of II Barbiere; there is 
another song in the style of George M. Cohan — 
these by way of contrast to the Iberian music), 
[ 288 ] 



The Land of Joy 

now pulsing with rhythmic life, is the best Spanish 
music we have yet heard in this country. The 
whole entertainment, music, colours, costumes, 
songs, dances, and all, is as nicely arranged in its 
crescendos and decrescendos, its prestos and 
adagios as a Mozart finale. The close of the first 
act, in which the ladies sweep the stage with long 
ruffled trains, suggestive of all the Manet pictures 
you have ever seen, would seem to be. unapproach- 
able, but the most striking costumes and the wild- 
est dancing are reserved for the very last scene 
of all. There these bewildering senoritas come 
forth in the splendourous envelope of embroid- 
ered Manila shawls, and such shawls ! Prehistoric 
African roses of unbelievable measure decorate a 
texture of turquoise, from which depends nearly a 
yard of silken fringe. In others mingle royal pur- 
ple and buff, orange and white, black and the 
kaleidoscope ! The revue, a sublimated form of 
zarzuela, is calculated, indeed, to hold you in a 
dangerous state of nervous excitement during the 
entire evening, to keep you awake for the rest 
of the night, and to entice you to the theatre the 
next night and the next. It is as intoxicating as 
vodka, as insidious as cocaine, and it is likely to 
become a habit, like these stimulants. I have 
found, indeed, that it appeals to all classes of taste, 
[ 289 ] 



The Land of Joy 

from that of a telephone operator, whose usual 
artistic debauch is the latest antipyretic novel of 
Robert W. Chambers, to that of the frequenter of 
the concert halls. 

I cannot resist further cataloguing; details 
shake their fists at my memory; for instance, the 
intricate rhythms of Valverde's elaborately synco- 
pated music (not at all like ragtime syncopation), 
the thrilling orchestration (I remember one dance 
which is accompanied by drum taps and oboe, 
nothing else!), the utter absence of tangos (which 
are Argentine), and habaneras (which are Cuban), 
most of the music being written in two-four and 
three-four time, and the interesting use of folk- 
tunes ; the casual and very suggestive indifference 
of the dancers, while they are not dancing, seem- 
ingly models for a dozen Zuloaga paintings, the 
apparently inexhaustible skill and variety of these 
dancers in action, winding ornaments around the 
melodies with their feet and bodies and arms and 
heads and castanets as coloratura sopranos do with 
their voices. Sometimes castanets are not used; 
cymbals supplant them, or tambourines, or even 
fingers. Once, by some esoteric witchcraft, the 
dancers seemed to tap upon their arms. The 
effect was so stupendous and terrifying that I 
could not project myself into that aloof state of 
[290] 



The Land of Joy 

mind necessary for a calm dissection of its tech- 
nique. 

What we have been thinking of all these years 
in accepting the imitation and ignoring the ac- 
tuality I don't know ; it has all been down in black 
and white. What Richard Ford saw and wrote 
down in 1846 I am seeing and writing down in 
1917. How these devilish Spaniards have been 
able to keep it up all this time I can't imagine. 
Here we have our paradox. Spain has changed 
so little that Ford's book is still the best to be pro- 
cured on the subject (you may spend many a de- 
lightful half -hour with the charming irony of its 
pages for company). Spanish dancing is appar- 
ently what it was a hundred years ago ; no wind 
from the north has disturbed it. Stranger still, 
it depends for its effect on the acquirement of a 
brilliant technique. Merely to play the castanets 
requires a severe tutelage. And yet it is all as 
spontaneous, as fresh, as unstudied, as vehement 
in its appeal, even to Spaniards, as it was in the 
beginning. Let us hope that Spain will have no 
artistic reawakening. 

Aristotle and Havelock Ellis and Louis Sherwin 

have taught us that the theatre should be an outlet 

for suppressed desires. So, indeed, the ideal 

theatre should. As a matter of fact, in most 

[ 291 ] 



The Land of Joy 

playhouses (I will generously refrain from nam- 
ing the one I visited yesterday) I am continually 
suppressing a desire to strangle somebody or 
other, but after a visit to the Spaniards I walk out 
into Columbus Circle completely purged of pity 
and fear, love, hate, and all the rest. It is an 
experience. 

November 3, 1917. 



[292] 



II 

A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

"Art has to do only with the creation of beauty, 
•whether it be in words, or sounds, or colour, or outline, 
or rhythmical movement; and the man who writes 
music is no more truly an artist than the man who 
plays that music, the poet who composes rhythms in 
words no more truly an artist than the dancer who 
composes rhythms with the body, and the one is no 
more to be preferred to the other, than the painter is 
to be preferred to the sculptor, or the musician to the 
poet, in those forms of art which we have agreed to 
recognize as of equal value/' 

Arthur Symons. 



THE only George Jean, " witty, wise, and 
cruel," and the " amaranthine " Louis Sher- 
win, who understands better than anybody 
else how to plunge the rapier into the vulnerable 
spot and twist it in the wound, making the victim 
writhe, have been having some fun with the art of 
acting lately, or to be exact, with the art of 
actors. Now actor-baiting is no new game; as a 
winter sport it is as popular as making jokes about 
mothers-in-law, decrying the art of Bouguereau or 
Howard Chandler Christy, or discussing the 

[ ms ] 



A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

methods of Mr. Belasco. Ever so long ago (and 
George Henry Lewes preceded him) George Moore 
wrote an article called " Mummer Worship," hold- 
ing the players up to ridicule, but George really 
adores the theatre and even acting, goes to the 
playhouse constantly, and writes a bad play him- 
self every few years. None of these has achieved 
success on the stage. The list includes Martin 
Luther, written with a collaborator, The Strike at 
Arlmgford, The Bending of the Bough (Moore's 
version of a play by Edwin Martyn), a dramati- 
zation of " Esther Waters," Elizabeth Cooper, and 
the fragment, The Apostle, on which " The Brook 
Kerith," was based. Now he is at work turning 
the novel back into another play. , . . When the 
Sunday editor of a newspaper is at his wit's end 
he invariably sends a competent reporter to col- 
lect data for a symposium on one of two topics, Is 
the author or the player more important ? or Does 
the stage director make the actor? The amount 
of amusement this reporter can derive in gathering 
indignant replies from mountebanks and scrib- 
blers is only limited by his own sense of humour. 
Even the late Sir Henry Irving felt compelled on 
more than one occasion to defend his " noble call- 
ing." 

The actor, when he slaps back, usually overlooks 
[ 294 ] 



A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

the point at issue, but sometimes he has some- 
thing to say over which we may well ponder. 
Witness, for example, the following passage, 
quoted from that justly celebrated compendium 
of personal opinions and broad-shaft wit called 
" Nat Goodwin's Book " : " The average author 
and manager of today are prone to advertise 
themselves as conspicuously as the play (as if the 
public cared a snap who wrote the play or who 
' presents '). I doubt if five per cent of the pub- 
lic know who wrote ' The Second Mrs. Tanqueray,' 
* In Mizzoura,' or 6 Richelieu,' but they know their 
stage favourites. I wonder how many mantels are 
adorned with pictures of the successful dramatist 
and those who ' present ' and how many there are 
on which appear Maude Adams, Dave Warfield, 
Billie Burke, John Drew, Bernhardt, Duse, and 
hundreds of other distinguished players." 

It is principally urged against the claims of 
acting as an art that a young person without pre- 
vious experience or training can make an imme- 
diate (and sometimes lasting) effect upon the 
stage, whereas in the preparation for any other 
art (even the interpretative arts) years of train- 
ing are necessary. This premise is full of holes ; 
nevertheless George Moore, and Messrs. Nathan 
and Sherwin all cling to it. It is true that almost 
[ 295 ] 



A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

any young girl, moderately gifted with charm or 
comeliness, may make an instantaneous impression 
on our stage, especially in the namby-pamby roles 
which our playwrights usually give her to play. 
But she is soon found out. She may still attract 
audiences (as George Barr McCutcheon and Alma 
Tadema still attract audiences) but the discerning 
part of the public will take no joy in seeing her. 
Charles Frohman said (and he ought to know) 
that the average life of a female star on the Amer- 
ican stage was ten years ; in other words, her 
career continued as long as her youth and physical 
charms remained potent. 

We have easily accounted for the unimportant 
actors, the rank and file, but what about those who 
immediately claim positions which they hold in 
spite of their lack of previous training? These 
are rarer. At the moment, indeed, I cannot think 
of any. For while genius often manifests itself 
early in a career, the great actors, as a rule, have 
struggled for many years to learn the rudiments 
of their art before they have given indisputable 
proof of their greatness, or before they have been 
recognized. " Real acting," according to Percy 
Fitzgerald, " is a science, to be studied and mas- 
tered, as other sciences are studied and mastered, 
by long years of training." They may not have 
[296] 



A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

had the strenuous Conservatoire and Theatre 
Francais training of Sarah Bernhardt. As a 
matter of fact, indeed, the actor may far better 
learn to handle his tools by manipulating them 
before an audience, than by practicing with them 
for too long a time in the closet. The technique 
of violin playing can best be acquired before the 
virtuoso appears in public, although no amount 
of training in itself will make a great violinist, but 
the basic elements of acting, grace, diction, etc., 
can just as well be acquired behind the footlights 
and so many great actors have acquired them, as 
many of the greatest have ignored them. There 
can be no hard and fast rules laid down for this 
sort of thing. Can we thank nine months with 
Mme. Marchesi for the instantaneous success and 
subsequent brilliant career of Mme. Melba? 
Against this training offset the years and years of 
road playing and the more years of study at home 
in retirement to account for the career of Mrs. 
Fiske. The Australian soprano was born with a 
naturally-placed and flexible voice. Her shake 
is said to have been perfection when she was a 
child; her scale was even; her intonation impec- 
cable. She had very little to learn except the roles 
in the operas she was to sing and her future was 
very clearly marked from the night she made her 
[297] 



A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

debut as Gilda in Rigoletto. Mme. Patti was 
equally gifted. Mme. Pasta and Mme. Fremstad, 
on the other hand, toiled very slowly towards fame. 
The former singer was an absolute failure when 
she first appeared in London and it took several 
years of hard work to make her the greatest lyric 
artist of her day. The great Jenny Lind retired 
from the stage completely defeated, only to return 
as the most popular singer of her time. Mischa 
Elman has told me he never practices ; Leo Orn- 
stein, on the other hand, spends hours every day 
at the piano. Mozart sprang, full-armed with 
genius, into the world. He began composing at 
the age of four. No training was necessary for 
him, but Beethoven and Wagner developed slowly. 
In the field of writers there are even more happy 
examples. Hundreds of boys have spent years in 
theme and literature courses in college preparing 
in vain for a future which was never to be theirs, 
while other youths with no educations have taken 
to writing as a cat takes to cat-nip. Should we 
assume that the annual output of Professor 
Baker's class at Harvard produces better play- 
wrights than Moliere or Shakespeare, neither of 
whom enjoyed Professor Baker's lectures, nor, I 
think I am safe in conjecturing, anything like 
them? 

[ 298 ] 



A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

What, after all, constitutes training? For a 
creative or interpretative genius mere existence 
seems to be sufficient. Joseph Conrad, Nicholas 
Rimsky-Korsakov, and Patrick MacGill all were 
sailors for many years before they began to write. 
We owe " Youth " and the first section of Sche- 
herazade to this accident. MacGill also had the 
privilege of digging potatoes; he writes about it 
in "The Rat-pit." Mrs. Patrick Campbell 
learned enough about how to move about and how 
to speak in the country houses she frequented 
before she began her professional career to enable 
her immediately to take a position of importance 
on the stage. It does not seem necessary, indeed, 
that the training for any career should be pre- 
scribed or systematic. Some men get their train- 
ing one way and some another. A school of act- 
ing may be of the greatest benefit to A, while B 
will not profit by it. Some actors are ruined by 
stock companies; others are improved by them. 
The geniuses in this interpretative art as in all 
the other interpretative and creative arts, seem to 
rise above obstructions, and to make themselves 
felt, whatever difficulties are put in their way. 

Some great actors, like some great musicians 
and authors, create out of their fulness. They 
cannot explain; they do not need to study; they 
[299] 



A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

create by instinct. Others, like Beethoven and 
Olive Fremstad, work and rework their material 
in the closet until it approaches perfection, when 
they expose it. To say that there are bad actors 
following in the footsteps of both these types of 
geniuses is to be axiomatic and trite. It would 
be a foregone conclusion. Just as there are mu- 
sicians who write as easily as Mozart but who 
have nothing to say, so there are other musicians 
who write and rewrite, work and rework, study 
and restudy, and yet what they finally offer the 
public has not the quality or the force or the in- 
spiration of a common gutter-ballad. 

It has also been urged in print that as natural- 
ness is the goal of the actor he should never have 
to strive for it. The names of Frank Reicher and 
John Drew are often mentioned as those of men 
who " p'lay themselves " on the stage. A most 
difficult thing to do ! Also an unfortunate choice 
of names. Each of these artists has undergone a 
long and arduous apprenticeship in order to 
achieve the natural method which has given him 
eminence in his career. Indeed, of all the qualities 
of the actor this is the least easy to acquire. 

Actors are often condemned because they are 
not versatile. Versatility is undoubtedly an ad- 
mirable quality in an actor, valuable, especially to 
[300] 



A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

his manager, but hardly an essential one. An ar- 
tist is not required to do more than one thing well. 
Vladimir de Pachmann specializes in Chopin play- 
ing, but Arthur Symons once wrote that " he is the 
greatest living pianist, because he can play cer- 
tain things better than any other pianist can play 
anything." Should we not allot similar approval 
to the actor or actress who makes a fine effect in 
one part or in one kind of part ? I should not call 
Ellen Terry a versatile actress, but I should call 
her a great artist. Marie Tempest is not versa- 
tile, unless she should be so designated for having 
made equal successes on the lyric and dramatic 
stages, but she is one of the most satisfying artists 
at present appearing before our public. Mal- 
larme was not versatile ; Cezanne was not versatile ; 
nor was Thomas Love Peacock. Mascagni, as- 
suredly, is not versatile. The da Vincis and Wag- 
ners are rare figures in the history of creative art 
just as the Nijinskys and Rachels are rare in the 
history of interpretative art. 

Someone may say that the great actor dies while 
the play goes thundering on through the ages on 
the stage and in everyman's library. This very 
point, indeed, is made by Mr. Lewes. But this, 
alas, is the reverse of the truth. We have compe- 
tent and immensely absorbing records of the lives 
[301] 



A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

and art of David Garrick, Mrs. Siddons, Ristori, 
Clairon, Rachel, Charlotte Cushman, Edwin Booth, 
and other prominent players, while most of the 
plays in which they appeared are not only no 
longer actable, but also no longer readable. The 
brothers de Goncourt, for example, wrote an ac- 
count of Clairon which is a book of the first in- 
terest, while I defy any one to get through two 
pages of most of the fustian she was compelled to 
act! The reason for this is very easily formu- 
lated. Great acting is human and universal. It 
is eternal in its appeal and its memory is easily 
kept alive while playwrighting is largely a matter 
of fashion, and appeals to the mob of men and 
women who never read and who are more interested 
in police news than they are in poetry. George 
Broadhurst or Henry Bernstein or Arthur Wing 
Pinero, or others like them, have always been the 
popular playwrights ; a few names like Sophocles, 
Terence, Moliere, Shakespeare, and Ibsen come 
rolling down to us, but they are precious and few. 
A great actor, indeed, can put life into per- 
fectly wooden material. In the case of Sarah 
Bernhardt, who was the creator, the actress or 
Sardou? In the case of Henry Irving, who was 
the creator, the actor or the authors of The Bells 
and Faust (not, in this instance, Goethe)? Is 
[ 302 ] 



A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

Langdon Mitchell's version of " Vanity Fair " suf- 
ficiently a work of art to exist without the co- 
operation of Mrs. Fiske? When Duse electrified 
her audiences in such plays as The Second Mrs, 
Tanqueray and Fedora, were the dramatists re- 
sponsible for the effect? Arthur Symons says 
of her in the latter play, " A great actress, who is 
also a great intelligence, is seen accepting it, for 
its purpose, with contempt, as a thing to exercise 
her technical skill upon." One reads of Mrs. Sid- 
done that she could move a roomful of people to 
tears merely by repeating the word " hippopot- 
amus " with varying stress. Should we thank the 
behemoth for this miracle? 

Any one who understands great acting knows 
that it is illumination. There are those who are 
born to throw light on the creations of the poets, 
just as there are others born to be poets. These 
interpreters give a new life to the works of the 
masters, iEschylus, Congreve, Tchekhov. When, 
as more frequently happens, they are called upon 
to play mediocre parts it is with their own per- 
sonal force, their atmospheric aura that they 
create something more than the author himself 
ever intended or dreamed of. How could Joseph 
Jefferson play Rip Van Wmkle for thirty years 
(or longer) with scenery in tatters and a company 
[ 303 ] 



A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

of mummers which Corse Payton would have 
scorned? Was it because of the greatness of the 
play ? If that were true, why is not some one else 
performing this drama today to large audiences? 
Has any one read the Joseph Jefferson acting 
version of Rip Van Winkle? Who wrote it? 
Don't you think it rather extraordinary that a 
play which apparently has given so much pleasure, 
and in which Jefferson was hailed as a great actor 
by every contemporary critic of note, as is in it- 
self so little known? It is not extraordinary. 
It was Jefferson's performance of the title role 
which gave vitality to the play. 

Of course, there are few actors who have this 
power, few great actors. What else could you 
expect? A critic might prove that play writing 
was not an art on the majority of the evidence. 
Almost all the music composed in America could 
be piled up to prove that music was not an art. 
Should we say that there is no art of painting be- 
cause the Germans have no great painters? 

At present, however, it is quite possible for any 
one in New York with car or taxi-cab fare to see 
one of the greatest of living actresses. She is not 
playing on Broadway. This actress has never been 
to dramatic school ; she has not had the advantages 
[ 304 ] 



A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

of Alia Nazimova, who has worked with at least 
one fine stage director. She was simply born a 
genius, that is all; she has perfected her art by 
appearing in a great variety of parts, the method 
of Edwin Booth. Most of these parts happen to 
be in masterpieces of the drama. She is not un- 
accustomed to playing Zaza one evening and 
d'Annunzio's Francesca da Rimini the next. Her 
repertory further includes La Dame aux Camelias, 
Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, La Figlia di Iorio, 
Giuseppe Giacosa's Come le Foglie, Sicilian folk- 
plays, and plays by Arturo Giovannitti. When I 
first saw Mimi Aguglia she was little more than a 
crude force, a great struggling light, that some- 
times illuminated, nay often blinded, but which 
shone in unequal flashes. Experience has made of 
her an actress who is almost unfailing in her effect. 
If you asked her about the technique of her art 
she would probably smile (as Mozart and Schubert 
might have done before her) ; if you asked her 
about her method she would not understand you 
. . . but she understands the art of acting. 

Watch her, for instance, in the second act of 
Zaza, in the scene in which the music hall singer 
discovers that her lover has a wife and child. No 
heroics, no shrieks, no conventional posturings and 
shruggings and sobbing . . . something far worse 
[305] 



A Note on Mimi Aguglia 

she exposes to us, a nameless terror. She stands 
with her back against a table, nonchalant and 
smilingly defiant, unwilling to return to the music 
hall with her former partner, but pleasantly joc- 
ular in her refusal. Stung into anger, he hurls his 
last bomb. Zaza is smoking. As she listens to 
the cruel words the corner of her mouth twitches, 
the cigarette almost falls. That is all. There is 
a moment's silence unbroken save by the heart- 
beats of her spectators. Even the babies which 
mothers bring in abundance to the Italian theatre 
are quiet. With that esoteric magnetism with 
which great artists are possessed she holds the au- 
dience captive by this simple gesture. I could 
continue to point out other astounding details 
in this impersonation, but not one of them, per- 
haps, would illustrate Aguglia's art as does this 
one. If no training is necessary to produce ef- 
fects of this kind, I would pronounce acting the 
most holy of the arts, for then, surely, it is a 
direct gift from God. 

September 5, 1917. 



[306] 



Ill 

The New Isadora 

" We shift and bedeck and bedrape us, 
Thou art noble and nude and antique; " 

Swinburne's " Dolores." 



I HAVE a fine memory of a chance description 
flung off by some one at a dinner in Paris ; a 
picture of the youthful Isadora Duncan in her 
studio in New York developing her ideals through 
sheer will and preserving the contour of her feet 
by wearing carpet slippers. The latter detail 
stuck in my memory. It may or may not be true, 
but it could have been, should have been true. The 
incipient dancer keeping her feet pure for her 
coming marriage with her art is a subject for 
philosophic dissertation or for poetry. There are 
many poets who would have seized on this idea for 
an ode or even a sonnet, had it occurred to them. 
Oscar Wilde would have liked this excuse for a 
poem ... even Robert Browning, who would 
have woven many moral strophes from this text. 
. . . It would have furnished Mr. George Moore 
with material for another story for the volume 
called " Celibates." Walter Pater might have 
[307] 



The New Isadora 

dived into some very beautiful, but very conscious, 
prose with this theme as a spring-board. Huys- 
mans would have found this suggestion sufficient 
inspiration for a romance the length of " Clarissa 
Harlowe." You will remember that the author of 
" En Route " meditated writing a novel about a 
man who left his house to go to his office. Per- 
ceiving that his shoes have not been polished he 
stops at a boot-black's and during the operation 
he reviews his affairs. The problem was to make 
300 pages of this 1 . . . Lombroso would have 
added the detail to his long catalogue in " The Man 
of Genius " as another proof of the insanity of ar- 
tists. Georges Feydeau would have found there- 
in enough matter for a three-act farce and d'An- 
nunzio for a poetic drama which he might have 
dedicated to " Isadora of the beautiful feet." Ser- 
mons might be preached from the text and many 
painters would touch the subject with reverence. 
Manet might have painted Isadora with one of the 
carpet slippers half depending from a bare, rosy- 
white foot. 

There are many fables concerning the beginning 
of Isadora's career. One has it that the original 
dance in bare feet was an accident. . . . Isadora 
was laving her feet in an upper chamber when her 
hostess begged her to dance for her other guests. 
[ 308 ] 



The New Isadora 

Just as she was she descended and met with such 
approval that thenceforth her feet remained bare. 
This is a pretty tale, but it has not the fine ring of 
truth of the story of the carpet slippers. There 
had been bare-foot dancers before Isadora ; there 
had been, I venture to say, discinct " Greek 
dancers." Isadora's contribution to her art is 
spiritual ; it is her feeling for the idea of the dance 
which isolates her from her contemporaries. 
Many have overlooked this essential fact in at- 
tempting to account for her obvious importance. 
Her imitators (and has any other interpretative 
artist ever had so many?) have purloined her cos- 
tumes, her gestures, her steps; they have put the 
music of Beethoven and Schubert to new uses as 
she had done before them ; they have unbound their 
hair and freed their feet; but the essence of her 
art, the spirit, they have left in her keeping; they 
could not well do otherwise. 

Inspired perhaps by Greek phrases, by the 
superb collection of Greek vases in the old Pina- 
kotheck in Munich, Isadora cast the knowledge 
she had gleaned of the dancer's training from her. 
At least she forced it to be subservient to her new 
wishes. She flung aside her memory of the entre- 
chat and the pirouette, the studied technique of the 
ballet; but in so doing she unveiled her own soul. 
[ 309 ] 



The New Isadora 

She called her art the renaissance of the Greek 
ideal but there was something modern about it, 
pagan though it might be in quality. Always it 
was pure and sexless . . . always abstract emo- 
tion has guided her interpretations. 

In the beginning she danced to the piano music 
of Chopin and Schubert. Eleven years ago I saw 
her in Munich in a program of Schubert im- 
promptus and Chopin preludes and mazurkas. A 
year or two later she was dancing in Paris to the 
accompaniment of the Colonne Orchestra, a good 
deal of the music of Gluck's Orfeo and the very 
lovely dances from Iphigenie en Aulide. In these 
she remained faithful to her original ideal, the 
beauty of abstract movement, the rhythm of ex- 
quisite gesture. This was not sense echoing sound 
but rather a very delightful confusion of her own 
mood with that of the music. 

So a new grace, a new freedom were added to the 
dance ; in her later representations she has added a 
third quality, strength. Too, her immediate in- 
terpretations often suggest concrete images. . . . 
A passionate patriotism for one of her adopted 
countries is at the root of her fiery miming of 
the Marseillaise, a patriotism apparently as 
deep-rooted, certainly as inflaming, as that which 
inspired Rachel in her recitation of this hymn 
[310] 



The N e w Isadora 

during the Paris revolution of 1848. In times 
of civil or international conflagration the dancer, 
the actress often play important roles in world 
politics. Malvina Cavalazzi, the Italian balle- 
rina who appeared at the Academy of Music dur- 
ing the Eighties and who married Charles Maple- 
son, son of the impressario, once told me of a part 
she had played in the making of United Italy. 
During the Austrian invasion the Italian flag was 
verboten. One night, however, during a represen- 
tation of opera in a town the name of which I have 
forgotten, Mme. Cavalazzi wore a costume of green 
and white, while her male companion wore red, so 
that in the pas de deux which concluded the ballet 
they formed automatically a semblance of the 
Italian banner. The audience was raised to a 
hysterical pitch of enthusiasm and rushed from the 
theatre in a violent mood, which resulted in an 
immediate encounter with the Austrians and their 
eventual expulsion from the city. 

Isadora's pantomimic interpretation of the Mar- 
seillaise, given in New York before the United 
States had entered the world war, aroused as 
vehement and excited an expression of enthusiasm 
as it would be possible for an artist to awaken in 
our theatre today. The audiences stood up and 
scarcely restrained their impatience to cheer. At 
[311] 



The New Isadora 

the previous performances in Paris, I am told, the 
effect approached the incredible. ... In a robe 
the colour of blood she stands enfolded; she sees 
the enemy advance; she feels the enemy as it 
grasps her by the throat ; she kisses her flag ; she 
tastes blood; she is all but crushed under the 
weight of the attack; and then she rises, trium- 
phant, with the terrible cry, Aux armes, citoyens! 
Part of her effect is gained by gesture, part by the 
massing of her body, but the greater part by 
facial expression. In the anguished appeal she 
does not make a sound, beyond that made by the 
orchestra, but the hideous din of a hundred rau- 
cous voices seems to ring in our ears. We see 
Felicien Rops's Vengeance come to life ; we see the 
sans-culottes following the carts of the aris- 
tocrats on the way to execution . . . and finally 
we see the superb calm, the majestic flowing 
strength of the Victory of Samothrace. . . . At 
times, legs, arms, a leg or an arm, the throat, or 
the exposed breast assume an importance above 
that of the rest of the mass, suggesting the unfin- 
ished sculpture of Michael Angelo, an aposiopesis 
which, of course, served as Rodin's inspiration. 

In the Marche Slav of Tschaikovsky Isadora 
symbolizes her conception of the Russian moujik 
rising from slavery to freedom. With her hands 



The New Isadora 

bound behind her back, groping, stumbling, head- 
bowed, knees bent, she struggles forward, clad only 
in a short red garment that barely covers her 
thighs. With furtive glances of extreme despair 
she peers above and ahead. When the strains of 
God Save the Czar are first heard in the orchestra 
she falls to her knees and you see the peasant 
shuddering under the blows of the knout. The 
picture is a tragic one, cumulative in its horrific 
details. Finally comes the moment of release and 
here Isadora makes one of her great effects. She 
does not spread her arms apart with a wide ges- 
ture. She brings them forward slowly and we 
observe with horror that they have practically for- 
gotten how to move at all! They rare crushed, 
these hands, crushed and bleeding after their long 
serfdom; they are not hands at all but claws, 
broken, twisted piteous claws ! The expression of 
frightened, almost uncomprehending, joy with 
which Isadora concludes the march is another 
stroke of her vivid imaginative genius. 

In her third number inspired by the Great War, 
the Marche Lorraine of Louis Ganne, in which is 
incorporated the celebrated Chanson Lorraine, 
Isadora with her pupils, symbolizes the gaiety of 
the martial spirit. It is the spirit of the cavalry 
riding gaily with banners waving in the wind ; the 
[313] 



The N ew Isadora 

infantry marching to an inspired tune. There is 
nothing of the horror of war or revolution in this 
picture . . . only the brilliancy and dash of war 
. . . the power and the glory ! 

Of late years Isadora has danced (in the con- 
ventional meaning of the word) less and less. 
Since her performance at Carnegie Hall several 
years ago of the Liebestod from Tristan, which 
Walter Damrosch hailed as an extremely interest- 
ing experiment, she has attempted to express 
something more than the joy of melody and 
rhythm. Indeed on at least three occasions she 
has danced a Requiem at the Metropolitan Opera 
House. ... If the new art at its best is not 
dancing, neither is it wholly allied to the art of 
pantomime. It would seem, indeed, that Isadora 
is attempting to express something of the spirit of 
sculpture, perhaps what Vachell Lindsay describes 
as " moving sculpture." Her medium, of neces- 
sity, is still rhythmic gesture, but its development 
seems almost dream-like. More than the dance 
this new art partakes of the fluid and unending 
quality of music. Like any other new art it is 
not to be understood at first and I confess in the 
beginning it said nothing to me but eventually I 
began to take pleasure in watching it. Now Isa- 
dora's poetic and imaginative interpretation of the 
[314] 



The N e w Isadora 

symphonic interlude from Cesar Franck's Redemp- 
tion is full of beauty and meaning to me and dur- 
ing the whole course of its performance the inter- 
preter scarcely rises from her knees. The neck, 
the throat, the shoulders, the head and arms are 
her means of expression. I thought of Barbey 
d'Aurevilly's phrase, " Elle avait Vair de monter 
vers Dieu les mains toutes pleines de bonnes 
oeuvres." 

Isadora's teaching has had its results but her in- 
fluence has been wider in other directions. Fokine 
thanks her for the new Russian Ballet. She did 
indeed free the Russians from the conventions of 
the classic ballet and but for her it is doubtful 
if we should have seen Scheherazade and Cleo- 
pdtre. Daphnis et Chloe, Narcisse, and UApres- 
midi d'un Faune bear her direct stamp. This 
then, aside from her own appearances, has been 
her great work. Of her celebrated school of danc- 
ing I cannot speak with so much enthusiasm. The 
defect in her method of teaching is her insistence 
(consciously or unconsciously) on herself as a 
model. The seven remaining girls of her school 
dance delightfully. They are, in addition, young 
and beautiful, but they are miniature Isadoras. 
They add nothing to her style ; they make the same 
[315] 



The N e w Isadora 

gestures; they take the same steps; they have al- 
most, if not quite, acquired a semblance of her 
spirit. They vibrate with intention; they have 
force ; but constantly they suggest just what they 
are . . . imitations. When they dance alone they 
often make a very charming but scarcely overpow- 
ering effect. When they dance with Isadora they 
are but a moving row of shadow shapes of Isadora 
that come and go. Her own presence suffices to 
make the effect they all make together. ... I 
have been told that when Isadora watches her girls 
dance she often weeps, for then and then only she 
can behold herself. One of the griefs of an actor 
or a dancer is that he can never see himself. This 
oversight of nature Isadora has to some extent 
overcome. 

Those who like to see pretty dancing, pretty 
girls, pretty things in general will not find much 
pleasure in contemplating the art of Isadora. 
She is not pretty ; her dancing is not pretty. She 
has been cast in nobler mould and it is her pleasure 
to climb higher mountains. Her gesture is 
titanic ; her mood generally one of imperious gran- 
deur. She has grown larger with the years — and 
by this I mean something more than the physical 
meaning of the word, for she is indeed heroic in 
build. But this is the secret of her power and 
[316] 



The New Isadora 

force. There is no suggestion of flabbiness about 
her and so she can impart to us the soul of the 
struggling moujik, the spirit of a nation, the fig- 
ure on the prow of a Greek bark. . . . And when 
she interprets the Marseillaise she seems indeed to 
feel the mighty moment. 

July 14, 1917. . 



[317] 



IV 

Margaret Anglin Produces 
As You Like It 



OF all the comedies of Shakespeare As You 
Like It is the one which has attracted to 
itself the most attention from actresses. 
No feminine star but what at one time or another 
has a desire to play Rosalind. Bernard Shaw 
says, " Who ever failed or could fail as Ros- 
alind? " and I am inclined to think him right, 
though opinions differ. It would seem, however, 
that Rosalind is to the dramatic stage what Mimi 
in La Boheme is to the lyric, a role in which a 
maximum of effect can be gotten with a minimum 
of effort. 

Opinions differ however. Stung to fury by 
Mrs. Kendal's playing of the part, George Moore 
says somewhere, " Mrs. Kendal nurses children all 
day and strives to play Rosalind at night. What 
infatuation, what ridiculous endeavour! To real- 
ize the beautiful woodland passion and the idea of 
the transformation a woman must have sinned, for 
only through sin may we learn the charm of inno- 
cence. To play Rosalind a woman must have had 
[ 318 ] 



Margaret Anglin 

more than one lover, and if she has been made to 
wait in the rain and has been beaten she will have 
done a great deal to qualify herself for the part." 
Still another critic considers the role a difficult one. 
He says : " With the exception of JLady Macbeth 
no woman in Shakespeare is so much in contro- 
versy as Rosalind. The character is thought to 
be almost unattainable. An ideal that is lofty but 
at the same time vague seems to possess the Shake- 
speare scholar, accompanied by the profound con- 
viction that it never can be fulfilled. Only a few 
actresses have obtained recognition as Rosalind, 
chief among them being Mrs. Pritchard, Peg Wof- 
fington, Mrs. Dancer, Dora Jordan, Louisa Nes- 
bitt, Helen Faucit, Ellen Tree, Adelaide Neilson, 
Mrs. Scott-Siddons and Miss Mary Anderson." 

Of those who have recently played Rosalind per- 
haps Mary Anderson, Ada Rehan, Henrietta Cros- 
man and Julia Marlowe will remain longest in the 
memory, although Marie Wainwright, Mary Shaw, 
Mrs. Langtry and Julia Neilson are among a long 
list of those who have tried the part. Miss Rehan 
appeared in the role when Augustin Daly revived 
the comedy at Daly's Theatre, December 17, 1889. 
We are told that an effort was made in this pro- 
duction to emphasize the buoyant gaiety of the 
piece. The scenery displayed the woods embel- 
[319] 



Margaret Anglin 

lished in a springtime green, and the acting did 
away as much as possible with any of the under- 
lying melancholy which flows through the comedy. 

William Winter frankly asserts — perhaps not 
unwittingly giving a staggering blow to the art of 
acting in so doing — that the reason Rosalind is 
not more often embodied " in a competent and en- 
thralling manner is that her enchanting quality is 
something that cannot be assumed — it must be 
possessed; it must exist in the fibre of the indi- 
vidual, and its expression will then be spontaneous. 
Art can accomplish much, but it cannot supply the 
inherent captivation that constitutes the puissance 
of Rosalind. Miss Rehan possesses that quality, 
and the method of her art was the fluent method of 
natural grace." 

Fie and a fig for Mr. Moore's theory about be- 
ing beaten and standing in the rain, implies Mr. 
Winter ! 

To Mr. Winter I am also indebted for a descrip- 
tion of Mary Anderson in As You Like it: " Miss 
Anderson, superbly handsome as Rosalind, indi- 
cated that beneath her pretty swagger, nimble 
satire and silver playfulness Rosalind is as earnest 
of Juliet — though different in temperament and 
mind — as fond as Viola and as constant as 
Imogen." 

[ 320 ] 



Margaret Anglin 

Miss Marlowe's Rosalind, somewhat along the 
same lines as Miss Anderson's, and Miss Cros- 
man's, a hoydenish, tomboy sort of creature, first 
cousin to Mistress Nell and the young lady of The 
Amazons, should be familiar to theatregoers of the 
last two decades. 

Last Monday evening Margaret Anglin exposed 
her version of the comedy. As might have been 
expected, it has met with some unfavourable crit- 
icism. Preconceived notions of Rosalind are as 
prevalent as preconceived notions of Hamlet. 
And yet if As You Like It had been produced Mon- 
day night as a " new fantastic comedy," just as 
Prunella was, for instance, I am inclined to think 
that everybody who dissented would have been at 
Miss Anglin's charming heels. 

The scenery has been given undue prominence 
both by the management and by the writers for 
the newspapers. Its most interesting feature is 
the arrangement by which it is speedily changed 
about. There were no long waits caused by the 
settings of scenes during the acts. To say, how- 
ever, that it has anything to do with the art of 
Gordon Craig is to speak nonsense. The scenes 
are painted in much the same manner as that to 
which we are accustomed and inured. There is a 
certain haze over the trees, caused partially by the 
[321] 



Margaret Anglin 

tints and partially by the lighting, which produces 
a rather charming effect, but the outlines of the 
trees are quite definite ; no impressionism here. 

The acting is quite a different matter. As You 
Like It is one of the most modern in spirit of the 
Shakespeare plays. This air of modernity is still 
further emphasized by the fact that the play, for 
the most part, is written in prose. I feel certain 
that Bernard Shaw derived part of his inspiration 
for Man and Superman from As You Like It. 
Only in Shakespeare's play Ann Whitefield (Ros- 
alind) pursues Octavius (Orlando) instead of 
Jack Tanner. I am inclined to believe that 
Shaw's psychology in this instance is the more 
sound. It seems incredible that a girl so witty, 
so beautiful, and so intelligent as Rosalind should 
waste so much time on that sentimental, uncompre- 
hending creature known as Orlando. Every line 
of Orlando should have sounded the knell of his 
fate in her ears. However, it must be remembered 
that Orlando was young and good-looking, and 
that, at least in the play, men of the right stamp 
seemed to be scarce. Of course, it is out of 
Touchstone that Shaw has evolved his Jack Tan- 
ner. 

Whether Miss Anglin had this idea in mind or 
not when she produced the comedy I have no means 
[ 322] 



Margaret Anglin 

of ascertaining. It is not essential to my point. 
At least she has emphasized it, and she has done 
the most intelligent stage directing that I have ob- 
served in the performance of a Shakespeare play 
for many a long season. There is consistency in 
the acting. Rosalind, Jaques, Touchstone, Celia, 
Oliver, the dukes, Charles, Sylvius, the whole lot, 
in fact, are natural in method and manner. There 
is no striving for the fantastic. Let that part of 
the comedy take care of itself, undoubtedly sug- 
gested Miss Anglin. 

Jaques, finely portrayed by Fuller Mellish, de- 
livers that arrant bit of nonsense " The Seven 
Ages of Man " in such a manner as a man might 
tell a rather serious story in a drawing room. 
" The Seven Ages of Man," of course, is just 
as much of an aria as La Donna e Mobile. It 
always awakens applause, but this time the ap- 
plause was deserved. Mr. Mellish emphasized the 
cynical side of the role. He smiled in and out of 
season, and his most " melancholy " remarks were 
delivered in such a manner as to indicate that they 
were not too deeply felt. Jaques was a little bored 
with the forest and his companions, but he would 
have been quite in his element at Mme. Recamier's. 
Such was the impression that Fuller Mellish gave. 
Bravo, Mr. Mellish, for an impression ! 
[ 323 ] 



Margaret Anglin 

Similarly the Touchstone of Sidney Greenstreet. 
We are accustomed to more physically attractive 
Touchstones, fools with finer bodies, and yet this 
keen-minded, stout person spoke his lines with such 
pertness and spontaneity that they rarely failed of 
their proper effect. As for Orlando, it seemed to 
me that Pedro de Cordoba was a little too rhetor- 
ical at times to fit in with the spirit of the per- 
formance, but Orlando at times does not fit into 
the play. For instance, when he utters those in- 
credible lines : 

" If ever you have looked on better days, 

If ever been where bells have knolled to church, 

If ever sat at any good man's feast, 

If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear. . . ." 

I do not know whether Miss Anglin is a disciple 
of George Moore or William Winter in her acting 
of Rosalind. How she acquired her charm is not 
for us to seek into. It is only for us to credit her 
with having it in great plenty. A charming nat- 
ural manner which made the masquerading lady 
seem more than a fantasy. Her warning to Phebe, 

" Sell when you can ; you are not for all markets," 

was delicious in its effect. I remember no Rosalind 
who wooed her Orlando so delightfully. For 

[ sm ] 



Margaret Anglin 

Rosalind, as Woman the Pursuer, driven forward 
by the Life Force, is convincingly Miss Anglin's 
conception — a conception which fits the comedy 
admirably. 

As to the objections which have been raised to 
Miss Anglin's assumption of the masculine gar- 
ments without any attempt at counterfeiting mas- 
culinity, I would ask my reader, if she be a woman, 
what she would do if she found it necessary to wear 
men's clothes. If she were not an actress she 
would undoubtedly behave much as she did in 
women's, suppressing unnecessary and telltale ges- 
tures as much as possible, but not trying to im- 
itate mannish gestures which would immediately 
stamp her an impostor. There is no internal evi- 
dence in Shakespeare's play to prove that Rosalind 
was an actress. She might have appeared in pri- 
vate theatricals at the palace, but even that is 
doubtful. Consequently when she donned men's 
clothes it became evident to her that many men 
are effeminate in gesture and those that are do 
not ordinarily affect mannish movements. Her 
most obvious concealment was to be natural — ■■ 
quite herself. This, I think, is one of the most in- 
teresting and well-thought-out points of Miss 
Anglin's interpretation. 

March 00, 1914. 

[325] 



The Modern Composers at 
a Glance 



The Modern Composers 
at a Glance 

An Impertinent Catalogue 



Igor Stravinsky: Paul Revere rides in Russia. 

Cyril Scott: A young man playing Debussy in 
a Maidenhead villa. 

Balilla Pratella: Pretty noises in funny 
places. 

Engelbert Humperdinck: His master's voice. 

Leo Ornstein: A small boy upsetting a push- 
cart. 

Giacomo Puccini: Pinocchio in a passion. 

Erik Satie : A mandarin with a toy pistol firing 
into a wedding cake. 

Paul Dukas : A giant eating bonbons. 

Riccardo Zandonai: Brocade dipped in garlic. 

Erich Korngold : The white hope. 

Arnold- Schoenberg : Six times six is thirty-six 
— and six is ninety-two ! 

Maurice Ravel: Tomorrow . . . and tomor- 
row . . . and tomorrow . . . 

Claude Debussy: Chantecler crows pianissimo 
in whole tones. 

[329] 



The Modern Composers 

Richard Strauss: An ostrich not hiding his 
head. 

Sir Edward Elgar: The footman leaves his ac- 
cordion in the bishop's carriage. 

Italo Montemezzi : Three Kings — but no aces. 

Percy Aldridge Grainger : An effete Australian 
chewing tobacco. 
August 8, 1917. 



[330] 



I ndex 



Abbott, Emma, 220 

Academy of Arts and Let- 
ters, 80, 225, 227 

Acting, 111, 113, 119, 120, 
272, 283, 293 et seq. 

Adam, Villiers de l'lsle, 48, 
49 

Adams, Maude, 295 

Adams, Oscar Fay, 38 

Aeschylus, 103, 303 

Agrippina, 69 

Aguglia, Mimi, 284, 304, et 
seq. 

Ainslee's Magazine, 75 

Alary, Signor, 248 

Alboni, Marietta, 169 

Alchemy, 76 

Allegranti, Maddalena, 254, 
255 

Alma Tadema, 296 

Alvary, Max, 99 

Anderson, Mary, 319, 320 

Anfossi, Pasquale, 169 

Anglin, Margaret, 321 et seq. 

d'Annunzio, G., 284, 305 

Apaches, 126, 135, 138, 140, 
141 et seq., 182 

Apthorp, W. P., 99, 168 

Arabanek, 164 

Archilei, 94 

Arditi, Luigi, 288 

Argentina, La, 284, 287 

Argus, The, 54 



Aristotle, 291 

Arne, 257 

Arnould, Sophie, 82, 96, 259 

et seq. 
Astor, J. J., 227 
Atilla, 79 
Audran, 216 
Augustus, 69, 70 
d'Aurevilly, Barbey, 43, 63, 

66, 87, 315 
Ayres, Frederick, 200 

Bach, 24, 28, 150, 199 
Badarzewska, Thecla, 23 
Baedeker, 58 
Bag-pipe, 135, 136, 137 
Bahamas, 136 
Baker, J. Duncan, 211 
Baker, Prof., 298 
Bakst, Leon, 16 
Bal des Gra villiers, 141 et 
seq. 



Balfe, Michael William, 27, 

165 
Bal musette, 125, 134 et seq. 
Balzac, 43, 50, 55, 56, 57, 63, 

76, 86, 187, 225 
Banti, Brigitta, 93, 164 
Bara, Theda, 80 
Barnabee, Henry Clay, 221 
Barnet, R. A., 216 
Barrison, Mabel, 219 
Barry, Mme. du, 260 

[331] 



Index 



Bassoonists, 157 

Bataille, Henry, 228, 230, 

232 
Bates, Katherine Lee, 38 
Battistini, 102 
Baudelaire, Charles, 43, 52, 

131 
Baumgarten, C. F., 171 
Bayes, Nora, 110 
Beardsley, Aubrey, 45 
Becque, Henry, 230 
Beerbohm, Max, 45, 50, 177, 

238 
Beethoven, 24, 27, 28, 32, 98, 

150, 151, 170, 175, 200, 219, 

298, 300 
Begue, Bernard, 156 
Belasco, David, 294 
Bel canto, 97, 101, 105 
Belford's Magazine, 37 
Bell, Digby, 222 
Bellini, Vincenzo, 24, 25, 77, 

79, 97, 100, 101, 114, 175, 

248, 267, 270, 273 
Bel-Marduk, 82 
Bergstrom, Hjalmar, 90 
Berlin, Irving, 25, 222, 234 
Berlioz, Hector, 27, 104 
Bernacchi, Antonio, 99 
Bernhardt, Sarah, 106, 122, 

227, 245, 295, 297, 302 
Bernstein, Henry, 228, 230, 

232, 302 
Bible, The, 67 
Bichara, 15 
Bilbao, 287 



Blei, Franz, 69, 78, 259 
Bocklin, Arnold, 89 
Bonci, Alessandro, 102 
Booth, Edwin, 111, 302, 305 
Bouguereau, 61, 293 
Bourget, Paul, 76 
Boyden, Frank L., 203 
Boynton, Henry Walcott, 

38 
Brahma, 82 
Brahms, 25, 274 
Brann-Brini, Mile., 164 
Branscombe, Gena, 200, 202 
Brenon, Algernon St. John, 

162 
Breton, Tomas, 113 
Brian, Donald, 217 
Brice, Fannie, 110 
Brieux, 230 

Brignoli, Pasquale, 155 
Broadhurst, George, 302 
Bromley, Eliza, 74 
Brothers of the Book, 85 
Browning, Robert, 307 
Bunn, Alfred, 165 
Burke, Billie, 295 
Burney, Dr., 258 
Butler, Samuel, 21 
Byzance, 80 



Cabanel, 61 
Caesar, Julius, 69 
Caffarelli, 95, 96, 112 
Cahill, Marie, 110 
Cairns, William B., 38 
Caligula, 51, 69, 79 



Billington, Mrs., 172 

Bizet, Georges, 108, 113, 275 Calve, Emma, 106, 275 

Blanche, Jacques, 183, 184 Camargo, 258, 259 

[ 332 ] 



I ndex 



Campanari, Giuseppe, 161, 

162 
Campbell, Mrs. Patrick, 299 
Caracalla, 79 

Carestini, Giovanni, 95, 96 
Carmencita, 285 
Carnegie Hall, 25 
Carre, Albert, 133 
Carreno, Teresa, 153 
Caruso, Enrico, 272 
Cassive, Armande, 232 
Catalani, Angelica, 93, 265 

et seq. 
Cato, 69 
Cats, 59, 69, 77, 102, 127, 

131, 132, 233, 258, 259, 298 
Cavalazzi, Malvina, 310 
Cesare Borgia, 79 
Cezanne, 301 
Chabrier, Emmanuel, 285 
Chadwick, George W., 197, 

199, 212 
Chambers, Robert W., 290 
Chaliapine, Feodor, 114, 155 
Charpentier, Gustave, 130, 

131, 132, 133, 134, 173 
Cherubini, 98 
Cherubino's question, 54 
Chinese plays, 103 
Chopin, 23, 26, 55, 112, 239, 

240, 301, 310 
Ghorley, Henry Fothergill, 

98, 169, 247, 249, 261 
Christ, 58, 67, 185, 191, 192 
Christianity, 57, 68, 82, 83 
Christy, Howard Chandler, 

293 
Churchill, Lady Randolph, 
" 185 



Cimarosa, Domenico, 255 
Cinderella, 137 
Cicisbeism, 82 
Clairon, 96, 260, 302 
Classical music, 23 
Claudius, 69 
Cleopatra, 82 
Cline, Maggie, 107 
Coerne, L. A., 199, 202 
Cohan, George M., 288 
Colles, Ramsay, 39 
Colonne Orchestra, 310 
Coloratura singing, 103, 104 
Columbia University, 43 
Comstock, Anthony, 59 
Condamine, Robert de la, 

183 
Congreve, 303 
Conrad, Joseph, 299 
Conried, Henrich, 161, 162 
Converse, Frederick, 212 
Cooking, 26, 50, 78, 129, 130, 

149 et seq. 
Cordoba, Pedro de, 324 
Corneille, 104 
Costa, Michael, 163 
Cou-Cou Restaurant, 125 et 

seq., 183 
Courts of Love, 65, 82 
Cox, J. E., 165, 173, 264 
Cox, Kenyon, 62 
Craig, Gordon, 321 
Critics, 24, 26, 30, 33, 34, 96, 

97, 99, 100, 105, 111, 115, 

228, 234 
Crosman, Henrietta, 319, 

321 
Crowest, Frederick, 163, 164 
Current Literature, 39 



[ 33S ] 



I ndex 



Cushman, Charlotte, 302 
Cuzzoni, Francesca, 95, 258 

Daly, Augustin, 319 
Daly, Dan, 222 
Damrosch, Walter, 157, 314 
Dancing, 112, 113, 137 et 

seq., 281 et seq., 307 et seq. 
Dante, 76 
Darby, W. D., 200 
Davis, Cecilia, 253 
Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 221 
Davis, Owen, 93 
Debussy, Claude, 30, 33, 96, 

113, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 

200, 315, 329 
Decoration, Interior, 11 et 

seq. 
Delacroix, 19 
Delibes, Leo, 108, 113 
Deslys, Gaby, 222 
Destinn, Emmy, 114, 155 
Devi, Ratan, 109 
Dickens, Charles, 187 
Dolmetsch, Arnold, 192 
Doloretes, 286, 287, 288 
Donizetti, Gaetano, 61, 79, 

88, 97, 101, 108, 113, 114, 

166, 173, 247, 248, 249, 250, 

251, 263 
Doubleday, 203 
Dreiser, Theodore, 202, 203 
Dresser, Paul, 202, 203 
Dressier, Marie, 222 
Drew, John, 111, 295, 300 
Duclos, 259 

Duff-Gordon, Lady, 222 
Dukas, Paul, 104, 113, 114, 



Dumas, Alexandre, fits, 106, 

205 
Duncan, Isadora, 307 et seq. 
Duse, Eleanora, 277, 295, 

303 
Dussek, Johann Ludwig, 

171 
Dyer, Edward, 209 

Eames, Emma, 275 
Earle, Virginia, 219 
Ehrhard, Auguste, 55 
Elgar, Sir Edward, 329 
Elizabethan plays, 51, 103 
Ellis, Havelock, 281, 285, 

286, 291 
Ellis, Melville, 222 
Elman, Mischa, 298 
Elson, L. C, 198, 199 
Elssler, Fanny, 55 
Eltinge, Julian, 96 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 43 
Euripides, 103 
Evertson, Admiral Kornelis, 

42 

Fall, Leo, 216 

Fame, 49 

Farinelli, 95 

Farwell, Arthur, 200, 202 

Faustina, 95, 96, 258 

Fawcett, Edgar, 66 

Fevrier, Henry, 113, 115, 

118, 119, 120 
Feydeau, Georges, 129, 229, 

230, 231, 232, 233, 236, 237, 

308 
Finck, H. T., 24, 25, 30, 32, 

58, 95, 99, 153, 272 



[ 334 ] 



I ndex 



Fischer, Johann Christian, 

161 
Fiske, Mrs., 297, 303 
Fitzgerald, Percy, 296 
Flaubert, Gustave, 66, 76, 87 
Folk-song, 30, 33, 100, 106, 

109, 152 
Follies, The, 16, 222, 223 
Foote, Arthur, 199, 202 
Ford, Richard, 285, 291 
Formes, Karl, 164 
Forum, The, 87 
Foster, Stephen, 29, 33, 152 
Fox, Delia, 217, 218, 219 
Fox, Helen Kelsey, 208 
Fragonard, 18 
France, Anatole, 68, 185, 193 
Franck, Cesar, 151, 315 
Franz, Robert, 23, 26, 93, 

111 
Fremstad, Olive, 108, 156, 

298, 300 
Freud, 50 
Frezzolini, Erminia, 261 et 

seq. 
Frohman, Charles, 85, 296 



Gadski, Johanna, 155 
Galli, Signora, 254 
Galli-Curci, Amelita, 

102, 104, 114 
Gamble, George, 39, 54 
Ganne, Louis, 313 
Garcia, Manuel, 160 
Garcia, Manuel, fils, 252 
Garden, Mary, 84, 114 

seq., 131, 133, 155 
Gardiner, William, 267 
Garrick, David, 96, 260, 302 

[ 335 ] 



101, 



et 



Gautier, Theophile, 46, 58, 

87, 131, 190, 225 
German music, 150 
Gerome, 61 
Gerster, Etelka, 269 
Giacosa, 284, 305 
Giardini, Felice de, 164 
Gibbons, Grinling, 19 
Gilbert, W. S., 107, 216, 221 
Giovannitti, Arturo, 305 
Gipsy, 100, 286 
Gizziello, 95 
Glaser, Lulu, 219 
Gluck, 29, 30, 96, 108, 135, 

170, 252, 258, 259, 260, 310 
Goncourt, Brothers de, 302 
Goodrich, A. J., 199, 202 
Goodwin, Nat, 295 
Gosse, Edmund, 179 
Gounod, 117, 151, 272, 273 
Gourmont, Remy de, 48, 229 
Goya, 59, 287 
Grainger, Percy, 30, 330 
Grau, Maurice, 161 
Greek Plays, 103 
Greenstreet, Sidney, 324 
Greenwich Village, 16 
Gregory, Lady, 192 
Gretry, 170 
Grieg, Edvard, 93 
Grimm, 259 

Grisi, Giulia, 166, 263 et seq. 
Grove, Sir George, 171, 202, 

271 
Guilbert, Yvette, 107, 113, 

114, 277 



Hadley, Henry, 197, 212 
Hadrian, 69 



Index 



Hale, Philip, 33 
Halevy, Jacques, 248 
Hall, Pauline, 219 
Handel, George Frederick, 

25, 95, 97, 102, 113, 119, 

172, 254 
Hanslick, Eduard, 102, 263 
Harris, Charles K., 202 
Harris, Frank, 55, 189, 190 
Hartmann, Eduard von, 43, 

56, 60 
Hawthorne vases, 18 
Hay, Reverend John Stuart, 

72 
Haydn, 28 
Heidelberg, 43 
Heifetz, Jascha, 287 
Heine, Heinrich, 82, 240, 

286, 287 
Heinrich, Max, 107, 155, 246 
Helen of Troy, 82 
Heliogabolus, 68, 69, 72 
Heloise, 82 
Helvetius, 259 
Henderson, W. J., 33, 115 
Herbert, Victor, 155, 216 
Hergesheimer, Joseph, 44, 

153 
Herodotus, 86 
Hertz, Alfred, 155 
Hervieu, Paul, 228 
Heyse, Paul, 67 
Hichens, Robert, 75, 81 
Higginson, Thomas Went- 

worth, 38 
Hirsch, Charles-Henry, 141 
Hirsch, Louis A., 222 
Hoff, Edwin, 221 
Hollins, Mabel, 219 



Homer, 76, 86 

Hopper, De Wolf, 107, 221 

Hopwood, Avery, 101, 236 

et seq. 
Horace, 76 

Howells, W. D., 74, 191 
Hubbard, Elbert, 39, 48 
Hughes, Rupert, 198, 199 
Hugo, Victor, 52, 55, 76, 87, 

105 
Humperdinck, Engelbert, 

24, 29, 173, 329 
Huneker, James, 33, 38, 55, 

153, 154, 164, 173 
Huss, Henry Holden, 199, 

202 
Huysmans, J. K., 43, 53, 70, 

76, 80, 87, 151, 191, 308 

Ibsen, 302 
Incest, 60, 74, 84 
d'Indy, Vincent, 200 
Irving, Sir Henry, 294, 302 
Irwin, May, 110 
Ivan the Terrible, 79 

Jackson, Holbrook, 44, 63 
James, Henry, 59, 68, 231 
Janis, Elsie, 110, 222 
Jansen, Marie, 219, 222 
Jefferson, Joseph, 303, 304 
Jehovah, 82 
Jensen, Adolph, 24 
Jew, 58, 71, 152 
Joachim, Joseph, 156 
Jolson, Al, 110, 222 
Jones, Henry Arthur, 234 
Joseffy, Rafael, 155 
Judic, 220 



[ S36 ] 



I ndex 



Jupiter, 82 

Kaiser, The, 79 

Kapila, 57 

Keane, Doris, 13 

Kellogg, Clara Louise, 166, 

268, 269 
Kellow, Lottie A., 203, 204 
Kelly, Michael, 159, 160, 161, 

170, 256 
Kendal, Mrs., 318 
Kenton, Edna, 41, 53 
Ker, Ann, 74 
Kern, Jerome, 23, 222 
Korngold, Erich, 329 
Koven, Reginald de, 216, 221 
Krehbiel, H. E., 100, 153, 

155 
Krishna, 83 



Labatt, 164 
Lablache, Luigi, 163 
Laforgue, Jules, 43 
Laguerre, Mme., 260 
La Harpe, 260 
Lalo, Pierre, 33 
Lampridius, 70, 72 
Lavignac, Albert, 173 
Lecocq, Charles, 173, 216 
Lehar, Franz, 216 
Lehmann, Lilli, 100, 107, 155, 

269, 270, 274 
Leoncavallo, Ruggiero. 

149 
Lesbian, 75 
Lessing, Madge, 219 
Levey, Ethel, 110 
Lewes, George Henry, 

301 



32 



Lienau's, 154 

Lind, Jenny, 248, 253, 265 

et seq., 298 
Lindsay, Vachell, 314 
Lippincott's Magazine, 63 
Lisle, Leconte de, 57, 76 
Liszt, 25, 32, 240 
Lombard, Jean, 69 
Lombroso, 308 
Loomis, Harvey W., 200 
Louis XIV, 135, 137 
Louis XV, 12 
Love, 81, 82 
Loy, Mina, 188 
Lucca, Pauline, 269 
Lulli, 172 
Lumley, Benjamin, 162, 265, 

286 



MacDowell, Edward, 25 
Macdonald, John Z., 208 
MacGill, Patrick, 299 
Mackaye, Percy, 235 
McCutcheon, George Barr, 

296 
Mcintosh, Nancy, 219 
Macy, John, 38 
Maeterlinck, Maurice, 117 
Mahler, Gustav, 28 
Male sopranos, 94 
Malibran, Maria, 164, 165, 

166, 253 
Mallarme, Stephane, 43, 301 
Manet, 61, 289, 308 
Mapleson, J. H., 159, 264 
Mara, Gertrude Elisabeth, 

255 et seq. 
94, Marchesi, Mathilde, 102, 149, 

252, 297 

[ 337 ] 



I ndex 



Marco, Maria, 108, 288 
Marie Antoinette, 259, 260 
Marinetti, 282 
Mario, 102 
Marion, George, 28 
Marlowe, Julia, 319, 321 
Marnold, Jean, 32 
Marseillaise, 310 et seq. 
Martyn, Edward, 192, 294 
Mary Magdalen, 66, 67, 68 
Mascagni, Pietro, 28, 275, 301 
Massenet, 27, 28, 116, 117, 

119, 120, 151, 275 
Matisse, 19 
Maurel, Victor, 107, 120, 

246 
May, Edna, 219 
Mayhew, Stella, 110 
Mazantinita, 287 
Mazarin, Mariette, 114 
Mazzoleni, 166 
Melba, Nellie, 102, 104, 107, 

108, 114, 155, 156, 187, 271 

et seq., 297 
Mellish, Fuller, 323 
Melody, 29, 93 
Mencken, H. L., 59, 65, 153, 

197, 198, 202, 203, 212 
Mendelssohn, 23, 24, 26, 171, 

202 
Mendes, Catulle, 43 
Meredith, George, 187 
Merimee, Prosper, 58, 87, 

131, 142 
Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 28, 29, 

102, 157, 164, 252 
Michael Angelo, 227, 312 
Michelet, 176 
Milton, 257 



Mirbeau, Octave, 229, 230, 

231, 232, 233 
Mitchell, Julian, 281 
Mitchell, Langdon, 303 
Modern Orchestra, 98 
Modulation, 30 
Moeller, Philip, 26, 236, 238 

et seq. 
Moliere, 225, 230, 231, 298, 

302 
Monbelli, 256 
Monkshood, G. F., 39, 54 
Montaigne, 150 
Montemezzi, Italo, 24, 330 
Montes, 189 
Monteverde, 102 
Montmartre, 126 et seq. 
Monvel, Boutet de, 142 
Moore, George, 67, 134, 184 

et seq., 231, 232, 294, 295, 

307, 318, 320, 324 
Moors, The, 65 
Moreau, Gustave, 44, 61, 89, 

191 
" Morrill, Higgins, and Co.," 

71 
Moulin de la Galette, 133, 

134 
Mount Edgcumbe, Earl of, 

93, 94, 253, 254, 255 
Moussorgsky, 23, 152 
Mozart, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 

31, 54, 88, 97, 101, 108, 119, 

161, 173, 174, 205, 234, 248, 

268, 269, 270, 275, 276, 289, 

298, 300, 305 
Mullin, W. T., 204 et seq. 
Murillo, 190 
Murphy, Agnes G., 155 

[ 338 ] 



I ndex 



Murska, lima de, 269 
Musset, Alfred de, 239, 240, 

252 
Musette, 135 

Nachbaur, Franz, 164 
Names, Theory of, 49, 50, 

56, 76 
Napoleon, 79, 192 
Naldi, Giuseppe, 160 
Nathan, George Jean, 293, 

295 
Nazimova, Alia, 283, 305 
Negro Players, 283 
Newman, Ernest, 32, 150 
Niemann, Albert, 164 
Nero, 69, 71, 72 
Nerval, Gerard de, 31 
New York Times, The, 

283 
Nicolai, Carl, 173 
Nicolini, 95 
Nielsen, Alice, 219 
Nijinsky, Waslav, 112, 183, 

285, 301 
Nillson, Carlotta, 237 
Nilsson, Christine, 268, 269 
Nordica, Lillian, 270 

Offenbach, 216, 219 
Opera-Comique, Paris, 131 
Orleneff, Paul, 283, 305 
Ornstein, Leo, 30, 104, 121, 

298, 329 
Oysters, American, 158 

Pacchierotti, 93, 94, 95 
Pachmann, Vladimir de, 301 
Paganini, 172 



Palmer, Delmar G., 210, 211 

Pan, Peter, 137 

Parke, W. T., 171, 172, 256, 

257, 258 
Parker, Horatio W., 23, 197, 

212 
Pasta, Giuditta, 97, 249 et 

seq. 
Pater, Walter, 70, 72, 137, 

190, 307 
Pattee, Fred Lewis, 38 
Patti, Adelina, 101, 102, 104, 

115, 153, 253, 269, 288, 298 
Payton, Corse, 304 
Peacock, Thomas Love, 301 
Peladin, Josephin, 43 
Persian miniatures, 19 
Pessimism, 56, 60, 61, 65 
Petrarch, 76 
Pfitzner, Hans, 200 
Perfumes, 79 
Phelps, William Lyon, 38 
Pheme, 86 
Philip II, 79 
Philistine, The, 39 
Philosophy of Edgar Saltus, 

54, 56 
Picasso, Pablo, 19, 183 
Piccinni, Niccola, 24, 258 
Pinero, Arthur Wing, 234, 

295, 302, 303, 321 
Pinto, Mrs., 257 
Pischek, Johann, 173 
Pistocchi, Francesco, 99 
Plagiarism, 72 
Poe, Edgar Allan, 44, 87 
Pogliani, Giacomo, 157 
Poiret, Paul, 154, 222 
Poisons, 51, 52, 59, 64, 76 



[ 339 ] 



Index 



Pollard, Percival, 48 
Pompadour, Mme. de, 260 
Ponchielli, Amilcare, 175 
Popular music, 23 
Porpora, 95, 96, 99 
Pougy, Liane de, 201 
Pratella, Balilla, 329 
Puccini, Giacpmo, 24, 26, 29, 

100, 103, 108, 113, 157, 173, 

175, 318, 329 
Puchol, Luisita, 288 
Puente, del, 159 
Purcell, Henry, 152 
Puritanism, 65 
Pyrrhonist, 179 

Quincy, de, 31 
Quinlan, Gertrude, 219 

Rabusson, 63 

Rachel, 250, 301, 302, 310 

Radcliffe, Mrs., 74 

Raff, Joseph Joachim, 23 

Ragtime, 110, 152, 290 

Rankin, Phyllis, 219 

Ravel, Maurice, 200, 315, 

329 
Realism in fiction, 56, 77, 88 
Realistic acting, 105, 111 
Reeves, Sims, 263 
Reger, Max, 27, 29 
Rehan, Ada, 319, 320 
Reicher, Frank, 300 
Reinhardt, Max, 282 
Renan, 76 

Renaud, Maurice, 107, 246 
Repplier, Agnes, 9, 38, 69 
Reszke, Jean de, 100 
Retz, Gille de, 80 



Rimbaud, Arthur, 43 
Rimsky-Korsakov, 157, 299, 

315 
Ring, Blanche, 110 
Ristori, 302 

Rives, Mme. Amelie, 48 
Rodin, Auguste, 129, 227, 

228, 312 
Rome, 70, 71 
Ronalds, Lorillard, 69 
Ronconi, Giorgio, 97, 98, 246 
Ronsard, 76 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 120, 

209 
Rops, Felicien, 312 
Rorer, Mrs., 149 
Rossini, Gioacchino, 25, 26, 

28, 31, 33, 61, 97, 101, 102, 

103, 142, 149, 168, 169, 248, 

273, 288 
Rostand, 228 
Rowland, Adele, 222 
Rub gam, 164 
Rubini, Giovanni Battista, 

163 
Rubinstein, Anton, 24, 112 
Runciman, J. F., 32, 234 
Russell, Lillian, 160, 220 
Russian Ballet, 282, 288, 315 
Rutherford, John S., 63 



Sacre-Coeur, Church of, 126, 

130 
Sagan, Princesse de, 84 
St. Giorgio, Signor, 159, 160 
St. Paul's School, 42 
Salieri, Antonio, 170 
Salome, 66 t 67, 86, 287 



[ 340 ] 



I ndex 



Saltus, Edgar, 37 et seq., 

117, 154, 187, 191, 225 
Saltus, Francis, 42 
Sanborn, Pitts, 118 
Sand, George, 26, 239, 240, 

252 
Sanderson, Julia, 217 
Santley, Charles, 158, 167, 

174, 264 
Sappho, 76, 82 
Sardou, 302, 303 
Satan, 58, 78, 286, 287 
Satie, Erik, 30, 329 
Saturday Review, The, 

18 
Savoyarde, restaurant, 125, 

126, 130, 131 
Scharwenka, Xaver, 155 
Scheherazade, 82 
Schillings, Max, 150 
Schoenberg, Arnold, 30, 32, 

121, 329 
Schopenhauer, 43, 56 
Schroeder, Edwin Albert, 71 
Schroeder-Devrient, Wilhel- 

mine, 99 
Schubert, 24, 27, 28, 33, 170, 

205, 305, 310 
Schumann, 111, 274 
Scott, Cyril, 29, 329 
Scotti, Antonio, 107 
Scriptores Historiae Au- 

gustae, 70 
Seidl, Anton, 155 
Sembrich, Marcella, 104, 107, 

108, 114, 115, 153, 271, 

273 et seq. 
Senesino, 95 
Shakespeare, 73, 76, 98, 147, 



284, 298, 302, 305, 318 et 

seq. 
Sharp, Cecil J., 30, 109 
Shaw, George Bernard, 42, 

234, 235, 239, 318, 322 
Shepherd, Arthur, 200 
Sherwin, Louis, 222, 291, 

293, 295 
Shield, William, 171, 172 
Siddons, Mrs., 18, 302, 303 
Simonds, W. E., 38 
Singing, 93 et seq. 
Smith, Harry B., 222 
Snob, 50 
Socrates, 117 
Solomon, 19, 80, 82 
Sonata form, 32 
Sontag, Henrietta, 246 et 

seq. 
Sophocles, 103, 302 
Sorbonne, 43 
Sousa, John Philip, 202, 209, 

216 
Southeim, 164 
Spain, 19, 59, 62, 94, 100, 

106, 142, 189, 190, 281 et 

seq. 
Spiritualism, 43 
Spohr, Louis, 24 
Stanislavski, 283 
Stanton, Theodore, 38 
Starr, Hattie, 202 
Starr, Muriel, 253 
Steger, 164 

Stein, Gertrude, 19, 79, 229 
Steinlen, 139 
Steinway, William, 154 
Stevenson, R. L., 68, 74 
Stigelli, 166 



[341 ] 



Index 



Stillman-Kelley, Edgar, 199, 

202 
Straus, Oskar, 216 
Strauss, Johann, 25, 139, 216 
Strauss, Richard, 25, 30, 31, 

32, 33, 100, 104, 113, 114, 

120, 175, 330 
Stravinsky, Igor, 32, 100, 

104, 114, 121, 152, 329 
Stuck, Franz von, 89 
Style in Singing, 98, 106, 

107, 108, 109, 110, 116, 117, 

118, 119, 245, 246, 249, 250, 

251, 270, 273, 274, 276 
Style in Writing, 45, 46, 47, 

48, 49, 53, 55, 56 
Suetonius, 70, 72 
Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 107, 

169, 216, 220, 221 
Swinburne, 76, 307 
Symonds, J. A., 72 
Symons, Arthur, 188, 232, 

245, 293, 301, 303 
Synge, J. M., 103 



Thomas, Augustus, 235, 236, 

295 
Thomas, Olive, 223 
Thomas, Theodore, 155 
Tiberius, 69 
Tichatschek, Joseph Aloys, 

164 
Tilzer, Harry von, 202 
Tinney, Frank, 222 
Tissot, 67 

Toscanini, Arturo, 156 
Tradition, 24, 97, 281 
Troubetskoy, Prince, 157 
Tschaikovsky, 59, 312 
Turgeniev, 187, 252 
Twain, Mark, 261, 265 

Urban, Joseph, 222, 223 

Vagaries of genius, 55 
Valliere, Louise, de la, 13 
Valverde, Joaquin, 284 et 



Tacitus, 72 

Taggart, Lucy L., 209 

Tamagno, Francesco, 120 

Tasso, 62 

Taste, 11 et seq. 

Tchekhov, 303 

Tempest, Marie, 219, 252, 

301 
Temps, Le, 18 
Terence, 302 
Terry, Ellen, 301 
Tetrazzini, Luisa, 102, 160 
Thebes, Mme. de, 79 
Thomas, Ambroise, 173 

[ 342 ] 



Vaughn, Theresa, 219 
Verelst, Myndart, 56, 58 
Veiller, Bayard, 68 
Velasquez, 16, 190 
Verdi, Giuseppe, 120, 149, 

173, 221, 270, 275, 298, 323 
Verlaine, Paul, 43 
Veronese, 16 
Versatility in acting, 300 
Vespasian, 69 
Viafora, 157 
Viardot, Pauline, 98, 250, 

251, 252, 253 
Victory of Samothrace, The, 

17, 312 



Index 



Vinci, Leonardo da, 190, 191, 
301 

Wachtel, Theodor, 164 

Wagner, Richard, 23, 29, 32, 
93, 96, 99, 100, 102, 104, 
108, 113, 120, 150, 162, 173, 
175, 270, 271, 274, 298, 301, 
314 

Walter, Eugene, 68 

Walter, Gustav, 164 

Warfield, David, 295 

Wayburn, Ned, 281 

Weber, 27, 31, 98, 175 

Webster, 51 

Weckerlin, J. B., 169 

WeichseU, Carl, 172 

Weichsell, Charles, 172 

Weidley, David, 210 



Wendell, Barrett, 38 
Westminster Magazine, 39 
Whitmer, T. Carl, 200, 202 
Wilde, Oscar, 20, 43, 48, 55, 

63, 64, 66, 70, 85, 86, 87, 187, 

239, 282, 307 
Winter, William, 320, 324 
Wodehouse, P. G., 222 
Women, Saltus's opinion of, 

73 
Wiillner, Ludwig, 246 

Yeats, W. B., 192 
Yohe, May, 219 

Zandonai, Riccardo, 329 
Zeus, 82 

Ziegfeld, Florenz, 283 
Zuloaga, 290 



[ 343 ] 



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